jeffo

My Feedback: (68)

I'm sure there are a lot of guys like me who have a plane they fly on a regular basis bump the prop on landing,but no nicks in the prop,so you assume no harm,no foul.Well I had a 1/3 Sig Spacewalker with the same prop for a couple of years,I bumped it a few times,no apparent damage,everything is fine right?Wrong,I threw a blade in the middle of a hammerhead,you heard the sound of a engine with no prop for a couple of seconds,then a loud bang of the fuse being torn apart.The wing separated (undamaged),and came crashing to the ground.It happened so fast that you could not process what was going on that fast.
I'm posting this because in 25 years of flying I never had half a prop break off in flight,I'd hate to see anyone get hurt.Jeffo

zeroback

Sorry for the lose (of one of my favorite frames) but what a lesson for the rest of us. I lost an AXi4130 when the spinner back plate collapsed causing a massive imbalance. I thought the motor and mount were coming off the firewall. The mounts flexibility saved the airframe but the motors 8mm shaft flexed enough during the incident that the bell touched the stator and broke a magnet.
Looking at the bright side at least you have the wing as a starter kit.

What brand and type was the prop?

jeffo

My Feedback: (68)

Zinger 20-10 Jeffo

rt3232

My Feedback: (6)

check them after every flight and even the slightest nick pull it and install a different prop, ( the bigger the prop the more critical the inspection needs to be) when you get the prop back to your shop, check with at least a 5power mag glass polish the nick re balance before re use even the old style plastic, C/F's are a different story better safe then sorry.

Just my 2 pennies worth

cheers Bob T
AMA13377

ALO 111

I remember seeing a scratch build Dc 3 'Ziroli' crash on it's maiden when it threw a blade causing the motor to break Off leaving the pilot who is a international competitive pattern guy with a one engine twin with serious cg problems. He did his best but a tip stall caused its demise. Turned out the day before the undercarriage failed at idle on ground run but they did not spot the damage to the prop. Hard lesson!

thailazer

Composite or plastic props get very brittle when exposed to the sun. I recently had Master Air Screw prop on one of my planes crack midway so it does happen.

Villa

Hi jeffo
At your suggestion I Inspected the prop on one of my electric drive planes. It had 2-3 cracks on each blade. I gently bent the prop and the blade broke off. Thanks for some good advice.

thailazer

Looks like there are some counterfeit ASP props out on the market. I just bought two from a local hobby shop here in Chiang Mai and it appears they used an original ASP prop as a mold. The pitch markings are quite diffused compared to the original ASP props I have had before. The thing that gave it away was that the shaft hole was drilled about a millimeter off center and there are plastic shavings left on the prop from the drilling operation. Took a while to get it balanced and am hoping it holds up.