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![]() "EDR" wrote in message ... In article , Larry Smith wrote: Looking for data on how much better, if any, one of the subject aircraft performs with a Warp Drive or similiar prop. We can't install anything but certified wood props (or expensive aluminum ones) on our old birds. Thus, what we need is hard data so maybe we can approach FAA to let us convert to carbon fiber props. I fly a 65 hp 1945 Champ with an aluminum prop. Let me guess. A 7444? 7443? McCauley or Sensenich? Those props are hard to find used and a new one is over $2500. Look in the ACS catalog. I'd like to have one on my 65hp Taylorcraft but stay with the wooden Sensenich 7442, which is much less efficient than your aluminum prop. OTOH, a Warp Drive would cost $500 and is more efficient, if what I hear from Canadian fliers with A-65's and Warp Drives on their certified birds like Champs, Chiefs, Taylorcrafts, 120's, and Luscombes is accurate. I have seen Warp Drive props on friends Ezes. The coning scares me! Setting them to the proper angle is tricky. You can set one with ease. No big deal with the right tool, just a matter of setting the same angle for each blade. Wouldn't it be nice to have a ground-adjustable prop? What's "coning"? I have never heard of a catastophic failure of one of these carbon fiber propellers. With its high strength-to-weight ratio and the characteristic stiffness of carbon, it is the ultimate material for propellers --- better than steel, aluminum, wood, or any other material. A friend of mine dinged the wooden prop on his 160 HP RV-6, and he filled the ding with JB Weld, according to the fashion. A few weeks later he's at 8500 feet when the prop section about 14" long lets go at the stress riser. He was barely able to make it back to a field and was afraid the vibration would pull the engine off the mount. Yeah, I'd go with an aluminum prop but don't want to pay 2.5k for one. Why can't I use a Warp Drive which is ground-adjustable, state-of-the-art, more efficient and costs so much less? There's something wrong here. You can buy the finest forged steel Carrillo connecting rods for a tenth of what rods cost from Teledyne Continental. TCM wants something like $800 for two connecting rods to replace condemned rods they had Cornell Forge make for them -- and which are unsafe because they disintegrate in flight, and are the subject of a TCM critical service bulletin. Something's not right. |
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