Hamilton Standard propellors – Blade and Hub design – some useful info for you?

I believe the MkVXI used Rotols much like the Mk IX? I don’t imagine props were shipped with engines?

The others are interesting , and may also help confirm some equivalencies.

And the Spitfire XVI was a mk IX but with the packard merlin so most likely used connecticut made hamilton standards

I also believe that the canadian made lancasters and hurricanes used the packard built merlins that used hamilton standards made in connecticut. Don’t know enough about the Oshawa built Mosquitos.

I think some Sunderlands used the R-1830 Pratt so would have used off the shelf Ham Stds.

I guess these were US engined aircraft. Hamilton seemed to design prop blades to match the engine, with only a lenghthwise cropping as a concession to the flight envelope of the type – back to front in terms of power absorbtion against other factors and somewhat lazy and innefficient or practical and easy to follow depending on bias.

DH designed to type – or rather, took a Hamilton drawing chosen for twist, solidity and AF appropriate to the aircraft, and gave it their own number. This made things much harder to untangle 80 years later.

I am working on matching the remainder of the blades in my spreadsheet. I have evidence that a lot more of the apparently DH-designed later, larger blades were also Hamilton licenced adaptions.

Wonderful information, thank you. Lendlease was truly happening in December 1941.

Just had a coffee and realised that all those props listed for the Stirling were for the MkII with Wright engines and which never existed beyond a prototype. Odd little table that, I guess it shows the only RAF (or potentially so) aircraft that had interchangeable US prop equipment at the time. In that it is instructive.

I have just caught up after a festive break from all things aeroplane and have seen this thread. Thank you very much indeed for this, AM – it confirms some things that deduction brought me to (the Lancaster Hamilton numbers – for which I have profiles) and fills in a few gaps (Srirling equivalents are particularly helpful in arriving at profiles for that range of Hercules DH blades).

Ossington, there will be a book if I can pursuade a publisher of the demand. I’ll use your post in my evidence, if that’s ok.

Thanks for sharing

Yes, AM, it’s OK magnified.

Anon.

Hi Anon,

Are you magnifying the pictures to their full size? They are crystal clear on my screen.

Anyone else having problems seeing them in enough detail?

Hi Flitzerfalke,

The extracts are from a copy of the Air Ministry Weekly Orders. I studied many years worth of these orders at the RAF Museum last summer.

Because of the very restricted opening hours of the Research Dept, I had to use a form of speed reading to get through all the annual volumes in the time I had available. If I saw an order which was of interest, I left a slip of paper on that page and then returned to photograph them all once I had reached the last page.

I photographed the Order relating to Hamilton Standard blades because I was aware of previous discussions about them on the Forum, otherwise I probably would not have bothered at all.

There may have been Orders concerning the propellors used on the Blenheim I and IV but I would have skipped past them as props are not my area of research.

I have a copy of AP1530B, Vol. I. Blenheim IV. The propellors listed in the “Leading Particulars” section are de Havilland, variable pitch, Type 4/3 and the pitch range is quoted as 10 degrees. Pitch settings Basic 36deg, Coarse 35 deg. 45′, Fine 26deg. I don’t have any info for the Blenheim I.

Hope this is of some use?

That’s interesting, AM, thanks for posting. Any chance of a better copy or scan of the page?

Anon.

Hi, is there a section on British aircraft propellers, specifically the Blenheim Mk I and Mk IV?

I would love to see a book that outlined the details of “airscrews” for each major piston engined aircraft. Something that matched company, diameter, composition and ideally, a drawing, primarily for modellers.