If it happened, it wouldn’t be from some identifiable “concerned lobbying group”, it would be an opaque mechanism of government where a nameless official had taken the decision that this sort of thing must be banned and it would go through parliament on the nod.

That’s a little bit Orwellian

I think you can take it or leave it, they have run the engine successfully a number of times causing no harm to themselves or anybody else on a custom rig that is concreted to a purpose built platform and is carried out far away (miles) from anyone, the engine was inspected and incrementally worked on to reach this point over a period of time and the outcome from their work is that it operated (as I am informed) perfectly.

Personally I would not contemplate doing something like this but as grown adults I think they can make the choice for themselves.
We are at risk of becoming a nation of risk averse busy bodies and although I totally agree with proper health and safety procedures and legislation in the workplace and in situations where your actions would put other people at risk I don’t think this situation warrants that; I am of the opinion that you should generally be able to do as you please as long as the only person you’re going to endanger is yourself, that is not to say I think sticking your head in the front of a winding down RB211 or even running one in your back garden is a good idea! There are certain incidents that have occurred at planned events where the public have been present I can think of that have concerned me far more than a bunch of guys playing with a big engine in a field where the only people they will hurt is themselves.

What are the chances that once someone “gets seriously hurt”, you will need a license to run an aero engine of any sort under any circumstances?

I’m just imagining a situation where a bill is put forward to the Government to ban the running of Aero engines by a concerned lobbying group, the whole idea is wonderful!

For those of you who can appreciate the eccentricity of running an RB211 in your back garden despite some questionable proximity to it at times I hope you enjoyed the video 😉

Matt

Thanks for all the replies guys, some very interesting points and it appears quite a few different ways of producing metal props. I would be very interested to see more details of the pantograph method.
As to 109’s and props i’ll see what I can remember:
I think that Black 6 had its metal blades fitted originally, they were then damaged at Benson while running through soft turf, after that it was fitted with a Hoffman Wooden prop which it flew with untill it was crashed in 1997, it is now fitted with the original straigtened 9-12087 metal blades again. The exfoliation corrosion that the Metal VDM props is susceptible to is something to behold!

Red 7 has always used a Composite Hoffman prop and it can be seen here, the hub does not require alteration to fit the Composite props

During the war 109’s wore metal props as illustrated below

This is a VDM 9-12159A prop

The Vs-11 prop of the 190D’s was a massive wooden prop

Matt