Best performing wood props
 

With my somewhat limited experience with gas engines especially those turning wood props of 17" dia and above, it seems to me that the Xoar brand of beech prop is a real standout performer, but now with so many new name brands available, which of them do you consider similar or close in performance to the Xoar ?

I asked just this on another forum, and many came back highly recommending Falcon props, over Xoar. As with anything, the specifics of your engine and plane will determine "best". I had a slight scuff on the tip of my Xoar 20x8 so got a new Falcon. Ground rpm did not change, and no retuning was needed. In the air, it was a bit quieter, performance did not change much for my setup. The odd part was I made a smooth, perfect, first landing with it, and on the roll out the engine quit. In going to get the plane off the runway, noted that one blade had sheared length-wise, and 3/4's was missing! Yikes! In 54 years of flying, this is the first time I have shed a blade not due to a ground strike!
Not at all saying that the brand is off my list. It worked well. It's wood, which can have hidden flaws. So it and Xoar are still on my list of brands to use. Far, far better than the wooden clubs of Zinger or Master Airscrew I had in the past been forced to use due to unavailability of other brands....
Just, especially with wood, the old safety advice stands - be behind the prop before doing any run ups, and don't allow anyone to be in line either side for a long distance.

That is quite surprising to me too as I've never encountered or heard of that ever happening before now except when the prop was damaged by a ground strike. Just goes to show that the safest place is possibly behind a spinning prop. I recently came across the Sail brand of prop which from all outward appearances seems to be a very well made and finished product. I plan on shortly making a comparison check between a Xoar, Sail and Valley View 17x6 props to see how what gives. Hopefully they will be very similar in their flight performance

While I use mostly Xoar wood props I’ve used a number of Falcon wood props with pleasant results. Performance comparable to Falcon carbon in some cases. I especially like the Falcon classic props that look like they came off a full scale Cub or something similar. One complaint about the normal Falcon wood props is the hub, a bit wimpy compared to Xoar. The classic props have quite large and thick hubs. Justmodelprops.com is my usual source for all things Falcon.

I use mostly Xoar but realize there is more than one version. Some are beech and some are ply (laminated). The ply is a little stiffer. I have also used Valley View and had no issues. I pretty much buy buy both brands of props from VV because they drill them for free.

David

I was a huge Falcon fan for a long time simply because they were the more affordable wood prop. but prop hub bore tolerance on a zoar is nice and tight every time, and the same prop in a zoar will bite air so much better. So I would say zoar is where its at if you can get them

Xoar's Beech props are one pulling prop,
I had a Xoar 17x6 pull 200 less RPM than an APC 17x8w on my 180 4St glow. and the Xoar 17x8 pulled 800 less RPM than that APC.

Jim

But did the Xoar props give a significant improvement to the model's flight performance ?

When compared to what?

When compared to the APC props than was mentioned.

For me, prop load on the engine is just one factor in selection. I mostly care about how the prop / engine combination pulls (and many times brake) a particular airframe the way I want it to perform. I've never found one single brand of props that work well in all size ranges. Some of my best performing wood props are the old and no longer available Bolly brand. They allow an engine to turn up like a Falcon prop yet they pull like a tractor. Sad they are no longer around. On my DLE35s, the Falcon wood Civilian series props way out perform any other prop type I have found. I flew one on my 1/4 CUB as it looked scale then later on when looking for a better prop for my 35 / Laser combination and after trying a number of Xoar and Falcon carbon props, I tried the prop from the CUB. It doesn't look the part on a Laser but it just plain works and the other props hang on the wall. Bottom line, you can only find the prop that suits your particular airframe and personal preferences by experimenting. And yes, that can get expensive.

Years ago when the Hawk brand was available I found them to be a very good performing sport prop. The Sail brand that I came across recently is a dead ringer for a Falcon so I have high hopes of it being good performer. But as you said experimenting with different props especially the larger sizes can be expensive.

A friend of mine tried a number of the so called "off brands" such as VV, Peak and others. He found most of them to be quite good and comparable to the Xoar Beech props in many ways. Ya just never know what they're like until you try one. I know I'm probably leaving some performance untapped on my DLE20 engines as the only prop I've ever used on them is a Xoar 17-6 laminated. That prop has worked very well and there just hasn't been the need to experiment.

In a few days from now I should be able to report on how good or bad the Xoar, Sail and Valley View 17x6 props performed on my 22cc powered profile model. Wish I had a Falcon to add to the mix, anyway I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that they all fall pretty much in the same flight performance range.

It's been awhile but I finally have some information to share. As promised I did some comparison checks re: rpm and flight performance for general sport flying on the 17x6 Xoar, Falcon, Sail and Valley View props. Using the Xoar prop as the benchmark I was pleasantly surprised to find that they all turned within 100 rpm of the Xoar and had very similar flight performance.

Thanks for the update!

When it comes to opinions, mine is that maple is not good.
Bechwook is good as well as laminated.
my .02

You don't see very many Maple props these days as that wood is more expensive than Beech. Not sure what was wrong with Maple otherwise. I always thought it was very good wood for making props. Beech is more prone to over compressing of the hub than Maple or Laminated.

Likely the other prop mentioned in the subject post.