Looking for books on the history of controllable-pitch propellers

[Maty12]

Hi all,

I'll be starting my final year of university in September and as such will have to pick a topic for dissertation. I'm very interested in writing about electrical propeller pitch control such as on the old Curtiss Electric propellers, but have struggled to find much material on their history or even the history of controllable pitch props in general online, especially who did what first. Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the history of propellers as a whole, controllable-pitch props, constant speed props, electric prop pitch control or Curtiss Electric props? Books of a more technical nature would also be a great help.

Frankly something I'd like to know more about in general as my maintenance class on propellers really didn't cover the history aspect much, so I'd like to read about it even if it turns out electric prop pitch is unfeasible as a topic.

Any recommendations appreciated,
-Maty

 

[Tom Fey]

Hi all,

I'll be starting my final year of university in September and as such will have to pick a topic for dissertation. I'm very interested in writing about electrical propeller pitch control such as on the old Curtiss Electric propellers, but have struggled to find much material on their history or even the history of controllable pitch props in general online, especially who did what first. Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the history of propellers as a whole, controllable-pitch props, constant speed props, electric prop pitch control or Curtiss Electric props? Books of a more technical nature would also be a great help.

Frankly something I'd like to know more about in general as my maintenance class on propellers really didn't cover the history aspect much, so I'd like to read about it even if it turns out electric prop pitch is unfeasible as a topic.

Any recommendations appreciated,
-Maty

Reinventing the Propeller by Jeremy R. Kinney PhD, Curator of Propulsion at the NASM. Amazon.com

 

[MIflyer]

I am not familiar with this book but it is available on ebay for less than $20. And if you go to Archive.org you will see many military training manuals on propellers available for free download.

 

[MIflyer]

Here is an article from a WW2 issue of Aviation Week.

 

[pb43]

Hi all,

I'll be starting my final year of university in September and as such will have to pick a topic for dissertation. I'm very interested in writing about electrical propeller pitch control such as on the old Curtiss Electric propellers, but have struggled to find much material on their history or even the history of controllable pitch props in general online, especially who did what first. Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the history of propellers as a whole, controllable-pitch props, constant speed props, electric prop pitch control or Curtiss Electric props? Books of a more technical nature would also be a great help.

Frankly something I'd like to know more about in general as my maintenance class on propellers really didn't cover the history aspect much, so I'd like to read about it even if it turns out electric prop pitch is unfeasible as a topic.

Any recommendations appreciated,
-Maty

A few manuals here

Hi all,

I'll be starting my final year of university in September and as such will have to pick a topic for dissertation. I'm very interested in writing about electrical propeller pitch control such as on the old Curtiss Electric propellers, but have struggled to find much material on their history or even the history of controllable pitch props in general online, especially who did what first. Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the history of propellers as a whole, controllable-pitch props, constant speed props, electric prop pitch control or Curtiss Electric props? Books of a more technical nature would also be a great help.

Frankly something I'd like to know more about in general as my maintenance class on propellers really didn't cover the history aspect much, so I'd like to read about it even if it turns out electric prop pitch is unfeasible as a topic.

Any recommendations appreciated,
-Maty

 

[Engineman]

Hi all,

I'll be starting my final year of university in September and as such will have to pick a topic for dissertation. I'm very interested in writing about electrical propeller pitch control such as on the old Curtiss Electric propellers, but have struggled to find much material on their history or even the history of controllable pitch props in general online, especially who did what first. Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the history of propellers as a whole, controllable-pitch props, constant speed props, electric prop pitch control or Curtiss Electric props? Books of a more technical nature would also be a great help.

Frankly something I'd like to know more about in general as my maintenance class on propellers really didn't cover the history aspect much, so I'd like to read about it even if it turns out electric prop pitch is unfeasible as a topic.

Any recommendations appreciated,
-Maty

Hi Maty,

Propellers is an interesting subject that will keep you busy as there are so many different types. When you define the scope of your study you will obviously know where the depth of your research needs to lie.
Having worked on and studied many different propellers, may I offer a few thoughts?
In the early days, the main difficulty was designing any reliable mechanism to vary prop pitch. Early systems included props that would only adjust a single time per flight, ie, from Fine to Coarse pitch after T/O. During the 1930's the mechanical designs flourished as design technology improved and you see rapid development of many operating principles for pitch changing, of which differing forms of Electric motor and Hydraulic operation are the main contenders. You can easily see which types were the most commercially successful at that time.
It is worth noting the big differences of function that are achieved between the early two-pitch types and the really important step-up to the variable pitch Constant-speed propeller with a large pitch range that allowed true control of piston engine rpm by the propeller system and really optimised aircraft performance into WW2. An almost coincident advantage with the large pitch range available in Constant-speed designs was the ability to feather the blades to a minimum drag angle to stop a failing engine turning and to reduce drag to a minimum after an engine failure. This feature has saved thousands of lives. It has a small safety advantage to single engine types but, it is critical to the continued flight capability of most twin engine propeller aircraft and is almost as critical to 3 or 4 engine aircraft. Without the drive to develop the advanced VP propellers for performance and economy, it may have been a long time before the huge safety advantage of feathering propellers was introduced.
Possibly beyond the scope of your work, but worthy of consideration, is the subject of the German VDM electric pitch change propeller. This important and successful propeller type was used in the greater majority of German WW2 combat aircraft and features the ability to easily allow engine mounted cannon firing through the propeller shaft.

Good luck with your work

Eng

 

[don4331]

In the early days, isn't the issue vibration? A large wooden propeller is both a wonderful flywheel and doing a terrific job of absorbing vibration.

There is a side note that your aircraft needs to be fast/large/expensive enough to justify the controllable pitch propeller.​

The issue being when you add the pitch change mechanism into the propeller, the blades of your propeller are no longer directly attached. The two position propeller sort of allows you to "lock" the propeller at either position, allowing for a good compromise of improved take off performance / improved top speed while maintaining some of the the vibrations absorbing characteristics of the fixed pitch.

When you get into get into variable pitch propellers, both you and the engine designer need to start resolving the vibration issues. It is compounded as engine manufacturers add gears to reduce the propeller tip speed as you can only go so large practically. And propeller manufacturers change from wood to aluminium/steel to improve manufacturing speed and consistency. (Every tree is different, some have branches in just the wrong place)

And finally, you get into the control mechanisms - how do you precisely adjust something that has 1,000s of Newtons of force acting on it?

 

[Maty12]

Hi gents,

Thank you for the recommendations. I will pick up both the Kinney and Rosen books. There was some poor planning on my part so it may be a couple months before I can.

Thank you as well for the articles and manuals, and for the suggestions and well wishes. Eng, good call on the VDM props, they are a bit of a blindspot for me and I'll look into them.

To better explain what I'm doing, I'm in talks with one of my professors about writing on the feasibility of using electric prop pitch control in modern aircraft, or possibly building a training aid for the university instead to demonstrate how electric prop pitch control works and writing about that. I'm still trying to figure out which idea to go with, and it largely depends on how much I feel I'll be able to write about the topic.

Kind regards,
-Maty

 

[[email protected]]

Reinventing the Propeller by Jeremy R. Kinney PhD, Curator of Propulsion at the NASM. Amazon.com

I have this book and found it excellent!

 

[MIflyer]

One of the most interesting things about the Wright Brothers is that they actually were much more successful and designing and building an efficient propeller than they were at building an airplane and engine. They were outstripped pretty quickly in airframe design and especially in engine design, but if they had chosen to build and sell propellers of their own design we very likely would still be using them today. Instead they chose to focus on patenting their concept of active three axis control, which was determined to be too broad an application of their designs.

 

[jetcal1]

Hi all,

I'll be starting my final year of university in September and as such will have to pick a topic for dissertation. I'm very interested in writing about electrical propeller pitch control such as on the old Curtiss Electric propellers, but have struggled to find much material on their history or even the history of controllable pitch props in general online, especially who did what first. Does anyone have any recommendations for books on the history of propellers as a whole, controllable-pitch props, constant speed props, electric prop pitch control or Curtiss Electric props? Books of a more technical nature would also be a great help.

Frankly something I'd like to know more about in general as my maintenance class on propellers really didn't cover the history aspect much, so I'd like to read about it even if it turns out electric prop pitch is unfeasible as a topic.

Any recommendations appreciated,
-Maty

Mr. Fey is correct. Here is my review of the book;
Excellent one stop book for a detailed yet grand vista view of propeller development. While the book does describe the aeronautical propeller from the beginning and ends with a discussion of modern technologies, the main coverage basically starts from post WWI through WWII.

The coverage of McCook field is excellent! Anyone who with knowledge of propellers will find familiar names such as Ray Hegy, Ernest MacCauley and few others. One minor disappointment for me was the limited amount of coverage on supersonic and general aviation propellers. (Think of the picture of Fish Salmon next to P-47 PE-219 with the scimitar blades, and Flottorp for example was noticeably absent.)

Other countries also receive somewhat short thrift with VDM in particular getting some mild criticism for pitch change speed with no discussion of how the efficiency of their wide chord blades eliminated the need to design four bladed propellers as HP increased.

Aviation books tend to cover the airplane with if you're lucky, a few paragraphs devoted to the engine and airframe systems. This excellent coverage of an important but almost always ignored aircraft component is way overdue and undoubtedly sets the standard for books on the subject.


Reinventing The Propeller is easy to read, has excellent footnoting with a chapter devoted to the sources used. Due to price and specialized scope, highly recommended only for those with a more than casual interest in aviation.

 

[elbmc1969]

Take a look at the Grumman F3F. It used a simple, purely mechanical flyball governor, which is essentially the sort of fast-spinning centrifugal governor that you see on old steam engines.

I assume that it only approximated constant speed, but it was clearly better than nothing, didn't require electrical or hydraulic connections, and used a simple, well-understood, and reliable principle of operation.

 

[Engineman]

Other countries also receive somewhat short thrift with VDM in particular getting some mild criticism for pitch change speed with no discussion of how the efficiency of their wide chord blades eliminated the need to design four bladed propellers as HP increased.

The VDM electric motor powered pitch change mechanism generally gave a pitch change rate of 1.5 degrees per sec. This was satisfactory even for the Bf 109 fighter and the only caution in the Pilots Handbook is to watch for high rpm if a full power-dive is entered from slow, low power cruising flight at altitude.
VDM and Messerschmitt, nor the RLM, do not seem to have had any issues with the system. On the Bf 109 F/G/K it used a low power 120W 24V reverseable electric motor that did not even have any ventilation for cooling even though it was mounted on the engine in an approx 80 centigrade environment. It would seem that if faster pitch change performance was required, a more powerful and faster running motor could easily be fitted, but they never needed it.
Overall, the common VDM electrical propeller with facility for Motor Cannon was an elegant design that functioned well and fulfilled it's design targets in WW2.

Eng

 

[MIflyer]

Take a look at the Grumman F3F.

I read of a case where a F3F went off a carrier deck into the Pacific off the coast of San Diego, was recovered and then shipped to the East coast for overhaul. When it was ready to go back to San Diego a pilot was assigned to fly it across the country. The pilot found what should have been a pleasant trip, flying the most advanced bipe used by the US military, was a nightmare. It climbed slowly, cruised much slower than it should have while using more fuel than estimated. He made it to San Diego and told the ground crew that he was happy to be rid of it. It was the worst flying airplane he'd ever had the misfortune to deal with.

The maintenance people looked at him like he was nuts. The F3F was a dream to fly and only an idiot would not think so.

Then a grizzled Marine Sgt went out and looked at the airplane and came back with a big smile on his face, saying, "I can see he is right. I'm sure the thing flys terribly. They put the prop blades on backward. The curved rear of the blades is facing forward as a leading edge rather than a trailing edge."

 

[herman1rg]

This is very interesting, I'm watching this thread

 

[MIflyer]

Go over to Archive.org and look up Volume 44, Issue 4 of Aviation Week, April 1945, page 117. They describe taking apart a captured Junkers Hydraulic Propeller.

 

[fubar57]

Might be something in here for you starting on Page 13

 

[Maty12]

Will check out the new recommendations as well, thanks lads.

I read of a case where a F3F went off a carrier deck into the Pacific off the coast of San Diego, was recovered and then shipped to the East coast for overhaul. When it was ready to go back to San Diego a pilot was assigned to fly it across the country. The pilot found what should have been a pleasant trip, flying the most advanced bipe used by the US military, was a nightmare. It climbed slowly, cruised much slower than it should have while using more fuel than estimated. He made it to San Diego and told the ground crew that he was happy to be rid of it. It was the worst flying airplane he'd ever had the misfortune to deal with.

The maintenance people looked at him like he was nuts. The F3F was a dream to fly and only an idiot would not think so.

Then a grizzled Marine Sgt went out and looked at the airplane and came back with a big smile on his face, saying, "I can see he is right. I'm sure the thing flys terribly. They put the prop blades on backward. The curved rear of the blades is facing forward as a leading edge rather than a trailing edge."

Funny you mention that, I witnessed the same thing two months ago, but fortunately on an ground instruction airframe. I was tasked with finishing the installation of a propeller that a student from the year above mine had removed and borrowed for months for his dissertation. He had disassembled it, reassembled it and partially reinstalled it, I just needed to torque the bolts and wirelock them... I get to the plane and feel like something looks off, and shortly realize that the blades are on backwards. I was honestly impressed that this was even possible and it gave me a good laugh. My professor was less impressed and said he'd need to have a word with that guy.

 

[Engineman]

Go over to Archive.org and look up Volume 44, Issue 4 of Aviation Week, April 1945, page 117. They describe taking apart a captured Junkers Hydraulic Propeller.

I had a read of that article about the early Junkers propellers. Originally, Junkers produced a licensed copy of the Hamilton Standard 20degree range counterweight propeller, the Junkers VLS propeller which started WW2 in the early Ju 87 and Ju 88. This report covers the early VS5 propeller for the Jumo 211 engines which was Junkers' move into their completely new design of oil-motor VP propellers . The written detail is good and it explains how that particular prop type was then modified during the period roughly 1940/1941. The detail is possibly a little complicated for the inexperienced and there is not much illustration.
The Junkers VS propellers were generally heavy and a little low tech. They were always oil operated, using gear type motors in the hub. However, they were used widely on Junkers engines.
The Junkers propellers were designed for simple single-lever operation, with only the option of selectable feathering on multi engine versions.
For interest, the Junkers props were the only type fitted to the JUMO 213 type engines.
Further detail about the Junkers props is difficult to find in English, although there are some other Allied test reports. The original Junkers technical documentation is mostly available from the Hafner Archiv for purchase.

Eng

 

[Engineman]

I had a read of that article about the early Junkers propellers. Originally, Junkers produced a licensed copy of the Hamilton Standard 20degree range counterweight propeller, the Junkers VLS propeller which started WW2 in the early Ju 87 and Ju 88. This report covers the early VS5 propeller for the Jumo 211 engines which was Junkers' move into their completely new design of oil-motor VP propellers . The written detail is good and it explains how that particular prop type was then modified during the period roughly 1940/1941. The detail is possibly a little complicated for the inexperienced and there is not much illustration.
The Junkers VS propellers were generally heavy and a little low tech. They were always oil operated, using gear type motors in the hub. However, they were used widely on Junkers engines.
The Junkers propellers were designed for simple single-lever operation, with only the option of selectable feathering on multi engine versions.
For interest, the Junkers props were the only type fitted to the JUMO 213 type engines.
Further detail about the Junkers props is difficult to find in English, although there are some other Allied test reports. The original Junkers technical documentation is mostly available from the Hafner Archiv for purchase.

Eng

Although I do not have the full Hafner Archiv about the Junkers Propellers, I can give a general list of the JUMO propeller types and applications.
The Junkers propellers were usually, possibly exclusively, used on Junkers engines, although some early-WW2 Junkers engines like the JUMO 211 A/B were sometimes fitted with the VDM electric prop.
The mid-1930's saw Junkers produce the VLS type that was a licence of the H-S bracket type oil operated prop. This was used on very early Stuka and Ju 88 aircraft, and probably other transport types.
The first of the Junkers own-design oil-motor operated prop was the VS5 which seems to have had several revisions 1939 to '41. This was used on 1939 and later Jumo 211A engines
with updates as described in the AW article.
In 1941 Junkers introduced the new VS11 oil motor propeller for the updated JUMO 211 F/J, mostly for the Ju88 and He 111.
In 1943 Junkers produced the New VS111 oil motor propeller for the new JUMO 213 A engine. This engine had some development delays but was used in later versions of the Ju 88 family and the Fw 190 D9.
In 1944 Junkers listed the VS9 oil motor propeller for the versions of Fw 190 with the JUMO 213 C that had a motor cannon. This development was probably started earlier as shown by the series number but had not appeared on another engine/aircraft until then. To allow the shells to pass through the propeller, the oil-motor and propeller architecture was re-designed to leave a clear blast tube through the whole unit. Additionally, the 213 nose-case and propshaft was a different design to suit this VS9 prop.

It would seem that the later series of VS propellers were reliable and simple to operate, with no specific controls or indicators apart from a feather/unfeather button on multi engine types. This simplicity was possibly a little limiting though, as it would normally not be possible to independently control rpm/pitch for long range cruise, although there might possibly
have been some arrangement to decouple the throttle/propeller function on some larger aircraft. This is conjecture on my part. Certainly, the Fw 190 D seems very simple with just a throttle lever.

Eng