A Little Information On Wood Propellers
In the early days of aviation, all propellers were made of wood. Today, there are metal propellers and wood propellers - and even in the 21st century, 10% of all the aviation market runs on wooden propellers.
In the first World War, which was not long after the Wright Brothers first began powered flight, airplanes were very high tech for the times. But at the beginning of any new invention, there is a lot of missteps. Fighting a war by airplane was a brand new concept. In the very early days of air combat, it was a matter of taking along a pistol and taking a pot shot at another airplane. When they began putting machine guns on airplanes, the stakes were raised but in a single seater biplane, it was necessary for the machine gun to be mounted on the top of the wing out of the way of the spinning propeller. This made clearing a jammed gun very difficult. When some bright spark got the idea to introduce a cam system that stopped the machine gun from firing when the propeller was in the way, it opened up the way to mounting the machine gun right in front of the pilot. This allowed for better aim and also allowed the pilot to more easily reach the gun if it jammed. It also prevented damage to that beautiful but fragile wood propeller.
There are not many wood propellers that survived the war or the years since then. Our beautiful wood propeller harkens back to the early days of flight. Mount one of these beautiful props on your wall or stand it up in the corner and be prepared for a great conversation. Maybe you should have a couple of stories ready about your early years when you were barnstorming around the country during the summer. Boy, I remember those days. I wish!
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