Need help identifying prop (Father's 50th bday present)

[PropIdentity]

Hello, I'm currently searching for a propeller for my Father for his 50th birthday present. I found one I think he'll like, but I'm having trouble identifying it. The seller believes it is a P-38 prop blade, which is what I am hoping for (his favorite warbird). If it is not from a P-38 I believe I will pass on it. I have not had much luck identifying it through pictures however I did find an account of a P-38 crashing in the general location it was recovered. I am hoping to get a piece with a story behind it, I feel that would be worth the extra money (3-4x the price of others).

Any help identifying the propeller would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[PropIdentity]

Can anyone advise what plane this would be off of? Here's the numbers:
DWG NO. 89301-6 CHG-E
SER. NO. 39382
SER. NO. AC
HEAT TREAT NO-2712
FORG NO. 26281

There are also a couple proof stamps:
"C 120" inside a circle (C 120)
"C 46" inside a circle (C 46)

 

[stona]

US aircraft are not my thing, but propeller blades to that drawing number were fitted to early P-51s.

Cheers

Steve

 

[PropIdentity]

Thanks for the info, that's about all I can find about it.. Hoping to trace the serial # to a specific plane but not sure where to look.. Any insight is appreciated.

 

[Airframes]

It's unlikely that the prop serial numbers will lead to a specific airframe, but someone here might be able to advise.

 

[waroff]

US aircraft are not my thing, but propeller blades to that drawing number were fitted to early P-51s.

Cheers

Steve

exact,
it was a Curtiss blade for hub C532D -F32
angle low: 23°,
angle high: 58°
No other aircraft was fitted with this propeller. (P38s were fitted with 88996 or 89303)

Waroff

 

[PropIdentity]

Thanks for the info! I had assumed it was from an early P-51 however I did find a test where they were testing that prop on a p-40..

I was really hoping to be able to trace it to a specific plane. The story is that it was recovered in the Netherlands from a plane crash that the Germans removed to study during WWII, so I haven't had much luck finding records since the Germans removed the crash debris during the war..

 

[fubar57]

Nicely done Waroff.

Geo

 

[GrauGeist]

Thanks for the info! I had assumed it was from an early P-51 however I did find a test where they were testing that prop on a p-40..

I was really hoping to be able to trace it to a specific plane. The story is that it was recovered in the Netherlands from a plane crash that the Germans removed to study during WWII, so I haven't had much luck finding records since the Germans removed the crash debris during the war..

However, the Germans did have records of recovered Allied aircraft, so if the Luftwaffe did recover that P-51 in the Netherlands, there is a chance that a record of the aircraft may exist in an archive somewhere.

If you can also narrow down the date and the vicinity where the P-51 crashed, you can also reference USAAF MACR records to narrow down the aircraft's identity.

 

[PropIdentity]

Thanks a lot for the ideas, I hadn't thought of German records.. Hmm.. Unfortunately I don't have much info about when it was recovered..

The story goes that the seller's father-in-law was a teenager during the war, him and his friends would try to aid downed allied pilots before the Germans got there and made it to a crash site (in Holland near Ijsselmeer) before the Germans and saw the propeller of the aircraft missing. The Germans came shortly after and removed the wreckage; then years later he found the propeller and a bunch of engine parts nearby and remembered the plane missing the prop from years before..

I figured it was a good story, just wish we could trace it back to a specific plane..

 

[GrauGeist]

Well, it's not impossible to find the ID of the aircraft!

There is a couple ways to do this.

One way is to find a date of the downing. Then you can go through the USAAF archives and find a MACR that corresponds with the date.

The other way, and it's a little more involved, but still can produce results, is to find exactly where the aircraft crashed at. Thousands of aircraft were down, but rarely did they land in the exact same spot. In otherwords, was it lost inside a city limits, or near a city or in the countryside (of a township), etc...

Once you have found the location out, you can search through the MACR records to find aircraft that were downed in that area...then it's a process of elimination.

So it's entirely possible that you will find out which aircraft it was, it will just take a little work

 

[Airframes]

If this prop is from an early P-51, which I'm presuming means Allison-engined P-51A, Mustang MkI, MkIa etc, and was found in Holland, then it's more likely that the aircraft was in RAF service, rather than USAAF service. If it was in USAAF service, then it's more probably from a photo-recce unit.

 

[stona]

If this prop is from an early P-51, which I'm presuming means Allison-engined P-51A, Mustang MkI, MkIa etc, and was found in Holland, then it's more likely that the aircraft was in RAF service, rather than USAAF service. If it was in USAAF service, then it's more probably from a photo-recce unit.

Correct.

As I understand it this would have been an aircraft with the UK designation Mustang I or IA and in UK service. These were not technically P-51s but went in the US by the factory numbers NA 73 and NA 91 respectively.

Cheers

Steve

 

[waroff]

According to interchangeability chart, A-36, P-51 had Curtiss propeller fitted with 89303-27w blade, and P-51 B C had Hamilton Standard propellers

 

[Marcel]

There is also a database of crashed aircraft here in the Netherlands. Although " near the IJsselmeer" is a bit vague.