On Wed, 7 Jul 2004 01:48:52 -0400, (Peter Stickney)
wrote:

(about the one-bladed prop

Efficiency in the sense of power to thrust. You're right - it won't
work so well at higher speeds.

It's a hovering prop--is that the idea?

You see many-bladed props on turbo-prop commuter planes. That's to get
max efficiency out of a very powerful engine (compared to recips).
There are only two things you can do to use up engine power: increase
the length of the prop or increase the number of props. Length is
restricted by practical reasons: you don't want to strike the ground
or cause the landing gear to be extra long; and you don't want the
tips to go supersonic. So that leaves multiple props.

Working backwards, a single prop would use the least possible power.
So the plane could travel very slowly for a very long time?

(Then there's the factor that the plane came out of the Northrop shop,
which sometimes seemed like a Skunk Works mirror image: wild ideas
that didn't quite pan out.)

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

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