In article haapc.2474$qA.269328@attbi_s51,
"Jay Honeck" wrote:

This past Monday, a couple of my friends took off in a Bonanza with a
3-blade McCauley prop installed. At about 1000 feet, on power
reduction, one of the blades came unhooked from its pitch change
mechanism and went into "free pitch" mode.

Wow -- I can't imagine how a blade could come detached. Those are some
pretty beefy mechanisms.

Glad they're all safe.


I saw the prop in a friend's hangar -- you could rotate one blade freely
about its longitudinal axis, while the other two were normal.