De Havilland Propellers de Havilland Propellers was established in 1935 , as a division of the de Havilland Aircraft company when that company acquired a license from the Hamilton Standard company of America for the manufacture of variable pitch propellers at a cost of about £20 , 000 . Licence negotiations were completed in June 1934 . de Havilland Propellers , Ltd . , was incorporated on April 27 , 1946 , with the main headquarters at Hatfield as the centre of design , development and flight - testing , and with the main production plant at Lostock in Lancashire . The factory had been built in only nine months as part of the government ' s emergency pre - war shadow - factory programme . Work on missiles began in the late 1940s , early 1950s at the Hatfield plant in facilities which had been used during the war for development and testing of aircraft propellers . By the early sixties , the company became Hawker Siddeley Dynamics which in turn became British Aerospace Dynamics later BAe Systems ( Guided Weapons Division ) until closure of the site in 1990 . Post war production . After the war , the company diversified ; The first departure from the production of airscrews took place in 1950 , when small - scale manufacture of electronic vibration - measuring equipment was started for sale to industry at large . These were the bye - products of the vibration department , whose experience in electronics was , early in 1952 , to provide the nucleus of a team which began the design of guided weapons : besides guided missiles , de Havilland Propellers undertook the manufacture of aircraft coldair units , turbine - driven electric alternators , radar scanners , electronic equipment , plastic structures — even an experimental 80 ft windmill to derive electricity from the wind . In that year the company received a contract from the Ministry of Supply for the development of a compact turbo - alternator to meet electrical power requirements of missiles developed by other companies . In the same year a second contract was received for the development of an infra - red homing head . When these contracts had been successfully completed the M . o . S . awarded the company a development contract for a complete weapon system for an air - to - air missile with infra - red homing guidance . Originally under the project designation Blue Jay , later to be Firestreak . Production of the Firestreak was shared between all the U . K . plants of de Havilland Propellers : - Hatfield was responsible for design , research and development ; Lostock manufactured a proportion of the weapon ( the remainder being sub - contracted ) and was also responsible for assembly and testing ; Farnworth carried out manufacture and assembly of development rounds ; and the factory at Walkden handled all production assembly . Woomera , Australia and Aberporth were used for test firing . The company was also responsible for the Blue Streak rocket , Britain ' s own nuclear missile . Although cancelled in 1960 as a weapon , the technology went into providing Europe with an indigenous satellite launcher . Blue Streak as first stage of the Europa rocket , it performed flawlessly with every flight and bears the distinction of being the only rocket to have a 100 % success rate in test firing . During preliminary investigations regarding the propellent system of Blue Streak , which DHP were the prime contractors , engineers from de Havilland ' s visited the Convair Division of the Dynamics Corporation in the United States to discuss problems associated with refuelling . A reciprocal technical information agreement existed between the two firms . Associated products . Under licence from Hamilton Standard de Havilland Propellers produced cold - air units for most types of civil and military aircraft . Used in conjunction with a heat exchanger , the units reduced the temperature of compressor - bleed air by more than 300 deg C . The use of epoxy resin / glass fibre - reinforced plastic s for airscrew spinners , blade root fairings and other components were also developed extensively by de Havilland Propellers Ltd . at their Stevenage plant . Dr . Norman de Bruyne , FREng , FRS ( Aero Research Limited ) , successfully developed the use of reinforced phenol - formaldehyde resins in the manufacture of variable pitch propellers for de Havilland ' s . The attraction of this material was that , with a density of about a one half that of aluminium alloy , centrifugal forces at the root were correspondingly reduced . Other products included the production of radar scanners and also the erection of a wind driven electricity - generator for ( Enfield Cables , Ltd . ) The first industrial - scale electricity - generating wind turbines to be built in the UK were constructed under the direction of the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association ( more commonly known as the Electrical Research Association , or simply the ERA ) during the 1950s and 1960s . de Havilland Propellers Ltd . , erected during 1953 in St . Albans a 24 m diameter 2 - bladed Enfield - Andreau type turbine . Other components produced at the company ’ s Lostock works were De Havilland Comet undercarriages .