Merits of Wooden Props on Late-War LW Aircraft?

[Kari Lumppio]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

The Spitfire propellers were made from resin-impregnated wood, effectively a new material, not just carved from a piece of a tree in the traditional manner.

AFAIK For it's wooden propellers Rotol used German manufacturing technique called Leichtholtz-Mantel. Patented by Gustav Schwartz Propellerwerk already before the war.

At least in German propeller blades resin-impregnated (under high pressure) wood was used only on the middle, the sides being made of lighter wood strips (spruce IIRC) glued together and carved. This helped in keeping the balance of the blade, the "spar" in the middle being heavier than the leading and trailing parts.

Regards,
Kari

[Kurfürst]

One area of advantage I can think of is weight. I recall seeing somewhere comperative weights of 3 and four bladed props of light metal and wood, and the latter were relatively lighter.

... and saving just 50 kg can be equivalent of 50-100 HP in climb !

The downplay is, I guess, that wood is effected a lot more by wheater, dampness and so on. Perhaps more labourous to make, too.

[George Hopp]

In a letter from Rolls-Royce to DeHavilland on 10th October 1942 the following was stated: "... the reduction in weight when using the wooden propeller was greater on the Merlin 61 Spitfire, than the mere difference in propeller weight, because ballast is required in the tail on this aircraft when a metal propeller is fitted. Because of this the total weight change was 150 lbs."

[Graham Boak]

The Sea Hurricane Mk.1 required the use of the DH metal propellor to balance the additional weight of the arrester gear.