Halifax propeller pitch change during crash

Photos of the two other props. Again, no significant damage to the tips of the surviving ‘full’ blades.
The prop with the vertical blade has both visible blades apparently feathered. The other prop looks unfeathered. Potentially that makes three feathered props and begs the question, could a Halifax fly on just one engine? I think that question was raised for the Lancaster some time ago, but what about the Halifax?

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A crash in soft reclaimed marshland. Not a vertical impact from great height. No survivors so no first hand accounts.
Certainly no sign of curled blade tips; in fact all the blade tips show little, if any, distortion. It is easy to make the feathered situation fit the evidence in photo 1: the right hand blade upper-most and suffering least distortion. No view of the third blade, but the left hand blade is bent the wrong way for a Hercules under power.

When an aircraft with a rotating prop strikes the ground at a shallow angle the blade tips have a tendency to curl around backwards. If the props were unfeathered there is a good chance they were windmilling. The lack of tip curl and the apparent lack of damage to leading edges suggests they were feathered at the time of impact and not rotating. Was this a crash or a forced landing ?

The best three blades were straightened and made into a memorial. The fate of the others and the hubs is not known. Such a pity the hub internals were not inspected/recorded when taken apart, as you suggested in post #4.

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What became of these props, Foray?

Anon.

A closer look makes me ponder wether or not that second prop is actual in normal or close to fine or regular pitch if you follow the edge from the hub outwards they are not feathered. ??

Peter
That was my first impression, but of course need to rule out the other possibility of ‘crash damage’.

Creaking door
A good point about all three. From the two blades showing in each photo, I would say yes.
(The blade being held in the second photo has been cut in two by the original salvage team, presumably to assist burial of such an awkwardly shaped item.)

Anon
That’s interesting and significant concerning blade strikes during taxying.
Pity the clock can’t be turned back, but it’s no longer possible to inspect the hubs.

They do appear to have been feathered, perhaps that is one of the reasons for the crash?

Blades do often rotate in their sockets during impact due to the relatively weak gears and spring packs which, whilst perfectly adequate for normal use were not designed to function in the intended way when under catastrophic loading. It was common for a blade to rotate in its socket on a Hamilton prop when a ground bladestrike occurred whilst an aircraft was taxying.

If the blades were feathered prior to impact then confirmation of this could only be ascertained by stripping down the affected props and seeing what has been going on inside. It will soon be apparent if they have been feathered or impact-twisted. My money is on the latter.

Anon.

While the overall construction of these Hamilton-Standard is extremely robust the actual components that keep the blades in the position dictated by the internal gearing are something of a weak-link. I have a similar, admittedly sheared-off, blade root from a Stirling; the three (or four?) bolts (approximately M8 size) and two pins (10mm diameter) that hold the blade in rotation were all cleanly sheared and the blade had obviously rotated through about thirty degrees.

I suppose the better question would be are all three blades in the same (feathered) position?

Foray, they both appear to have been placed into the feathered position by the looks of it.