Gardner Propeller Company

Forest Park, Illinois

The following background information on Gardner Propellers was provided by and used with the permission of Mr. Robert C. Gardner:

My name is Robert C. Gardner. My Uncle Bill was William H. Gardner, Jr. and he manufactured Gardner Propellers in Forest Park, IL. My Uncle Bill Gardner was a very interesting man. He attended Dartmouth but never graduated. His interest in airplanes led him to design propellers. He opened a factory in Forest Park through the financing of his father who was a banker. My father was a lumberman and had his lumber company on the same property. I used to go down to the Propeller works and watch them build propellers. It had a wonderful smell of the glue room where they laminated the wood to make the propellers. He had two employees who were German and were expert craftsman in their trade. In WW-II he made club propellers for the air corps. After the war the propeller business started to fall apart due to the variable pitch props made of metal. He could not compete with them and moved his shop to Wisconsin and tried making golf club heads. This failed and he eventually got a job in Peoria, IL as a draftsman. After he retired he moved to Springfield, IL with his wife and became quite active in AA. He did a prison ministry for AA. Eventually his health failed and he passed away from heart failure.
 

 

HomePropeller Identification |

Gardner props are stamped with a number known as a drawing or design number. The table below is arranged in drawing number order. Locate the drawing number in the left column then read across to locate the aircraft and engine combination the prop was designed to be used on. Although this is not a large page, it may be easier to locate your prop by using the search or find tools of your web browser.

Drawing No. Aircraft Engine
304 All Salmson 40 hp
365-A All Continental 37 and 40 hp
365-B Aeronca Aeronca 37 and 40 hp
365-C Single Place Aeronca 26 hp
369-D Aeronca Franklin 50 hp
369-D Aeronca Franklin 60 hp
369-E All Lycoming 50 hp
369-G All Lycoming 55 hp
369-K Ships other than Aeronca Franklin 50 hp
377 Rose Parrakeet A-2 Franklin 4HOA 40 hp
377 Rose Parrakeet A-2 Franklin 4AC-150 50 hp
456 All DeHavilland Gypsy 90 hp
457-C Ships other than Fairchild Cirrus Mark III 100 hp
457-D All Wright Gipsy 90 hp
491 All Continental 75 hp
491-A All Continental 80 hp
491-C All Continental 65 hp
491-F Ships other than Aeronca Franklin 60 hp
491-L All Lycoming 65 hp
497 All Continental 50 hp
569-A Usual propeller OX-5 90 hp
569-B Fast revolutions OX-5 90 hp
569-C All OXX-6 100 hp
581 All Warner Scarab 125 hp
817 Rose Parrakeet A-1 Continental A-40 37 hp
1450 Curtiss Jr. Szekely 45 hp
1451-A Tractors Szekely 35 hp
1451-C Tractors Szekely 45 hp
1471-A All Velie M-5 60 hp
1471-D All Leblond 60 hp
1471-G All Leblond 70 hp
1471-GA All Leblond 85 hp
1471-GB All Leblond 90 hp
1477 All Ken Royce 120 hp
1481-A All Kinner K-5 100 hp
1483 All Kinner B-5 125 hp
1487 All Tank 115 hp
1501-C Fairchild Cirrus Hidrive 100 hp
1501-G All Rover 75 hp
1525-F Fairchild Warner Scarab 145 hp
1525-W Cessna Warner Scarab 145 hp
3691 All Franklin 40 hp

The Rose Parrakeet information above was generously provided by Don Gillmore.
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