MT Propeller Manufactures New Props for Mustangs

[MIflyer]

The new props are composite blades with unlimited life. Looks funny on a P-51A, huh?

 

[GregP]

Does not look funny to me. The P-51B and on used a 4-bladed prop and it looks pretty normal.

I like the new blade shape. It makes more sense than the original to me.

 

[MIflyer]

Well, I've never before seen an P-51A with a four blade prop. It is true that Allison retained a Mustang for V-1710 engine development work. And the XP-51J with the V-1710-119 had a 4 blade prop.

I wonder how much help it would have been if we had moved to the broad bladed props earlier. The paddle blade props were a big help to the P-47 and postwar even lower performance aircraft such as the the T-28A had broad props.

 

[Michael Hope]

The MT propeller was designed for the F82, and now certified for the P51. Here is the MT Propeller news release link for the Propeller.

News - MT-Propeller

News about MT-Propeller develpments and supplemental type certifications for aircraft propellers

mt-propeller.com

MT propeller through his other company also is having licensed built replacement H/S aluminum blades for the P51. AVIA PROPELLER - Our history, AVIA PROPELLER - List of products

 

[Engineman]

I wonder what problems there are with the 3-Bladed P-51A prop?
Propellers are pretty complex things and we can read loads of development reports where huge effort was expended in getting a good match to the specific aircraft.
Very roughly, more blades can mean more losses, but there are a great many reasons to change the prop. Certainly here, it would be interesting to know the reasons for the change?
Also, I guess that this prop is going to be working at lower altitudes.

Eng

 

[don4331]

This might have some bearing

https://kingairnation.com/blog/why-the-evolution-to-propellers-with-more-blades/

 

[Sisu]

The new props are composite blades with unlimited life. Looks funny on a P-51A, huh?

View attachment 745805

That photo is quite old --that airplane has not looked like that for some time. Those blades really look like P-51H blades -- I wonder whether they are Aeroproducts style or Ham Standard style??

 

[Engineman]

This might have some bearing

https://kingairnation.com/blog/why-the-evolution-to-propellers-with-more-blades/

Thanks for posting. I find that piece sort-of points out a few reasons for possibly changing props on a King-Air but gives little info about a high performance Warbird prop.
There might be specifics for needing to have a new prop for a Warbird, like rarity of original parts but, the WW2 designers were pretty understanding of things like efficiency factors, tip speed, solidity and mechanical integrity. They also had to factor the huge speed range and altitude capability of those fighters. What also usually happened was testing of a large range of different props on the aircraft and picking the best for its suitability to the requirement, which was not usually cruise performance. I suspect that modern specialisation allows advanced design of efficient blades for efficiency optimised cruise performance and the argument about prop diameter Vs solidity is going to be very specific to application. Certainly, they mention old wider chord blades having some reduced efficiency but, it is not always more efficient to have more blades, it depends!
Overall, at least there are some good companies interested to work on old type propellers!
Cheers

Eng

 

[ThomasP]

Since the blade design and manufacturing process were already figured out for the 4-blade F-82 props - using same blades for the Allison P-51 above may very well have been simpler and considerably cheaper than having MT make blade replicas for the 3-blade type.

 

[don4331]

Since the blade design and manufacturing process were already figured out for the 4-blade F-82 props - using same blades for the Allison P-51 above may very well have been simpler and considerably cheaper than having MT make blade replicas for the 3-blade type.

I would add certification costs.

 

[gumbyk]

I would add certification costs.

They won't be certified. Warbirds are all operated under experimental.

Still, there's a lot of testing to do.
Different weight of blades will affect harmonics, etc.