Geoffrey Wellum's Tribute

[Darby]

A few photos of the Spitfire in the hanger prior to the memorial flypast today. Had an interesting chat with the maintainers and a point to note is that the prop on this aircraft is wooden. That's straight from the horse's mouth so to speak. Hope these images are of use to anybody and the flypast was quite a sight as well. A fitting tribute amongst the glowering clouds above Cornwall today.

 

 

 

[Troy Smith]

26 minutes ago, Darby said:

Had an interesting chat with the maintainers and a point to note is that the prop on this aircraft is wooden.

Neat pics Darby

 

Many of the the WW2 blades were wood based, being a compressed wood composite, Rotol using "Jablo"

 

google found me this, which I'd not see before

http://www.enginehistory.org/Propellers/Rotol/rotol.shtml

 

There are other types,  this is Jablo

 

 

The brass sheathing on the leading edge this can be seen here as the paint has chipped

 

as seen here in colour on a Spit XIV if you  look closely, note the yellowy nature of the bare metal.

 

Here's a useful image of some blades,showing both the wood construction and the brass leading edge sheaths.

 

Hope of interest

[Grey Beema]

Is it an urban myth that the Fleet Air Arm worked out that you could remove up to 4" (100mm) to repair a propellor blade after pecking at the deck without it loosing performance?  Balancing them after must have been really difficult I would imagine.

[Darby]

This a photo of the Rotol label. There was a leading edge protective strip on each blade which you can make out below.

[Simon Cornes]

I think that I may be correct in saying that the current Jablo blades used on airworthy Spits are made in Germany. Delicious irony! 

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Grey Beema said:

Is it an urban myth that the Fleet Air Arm worked out that you could remove up to 4" (100mm) to repair a propellor blade after pecking at the deck without it loosing performance?  Balancing them after must have been really difficult I would imagine.

This certainly happened on the early Griffon Seafires, 

the thrust line on the XV and XVII was lower, so they were more prone to 'pecking'

There is mention of the this IIRC,  in Seafire - from the Cockpit, but maybe in another Seafire book.  Sorry, books not hand to checkn details.

@gingerbob may know more.

 

34 minutes ago, Simon Cornes said:

I think that I may be correct in saying that the current Jablo blades used on airworthy Spits are made in Germany. Delicious irony! 

@Work In Progress has posted this

cheers

T

[bentwaters81tfw]

Imported Hoffman blades for the BoB flight many years ago. Came in as a commercial shipment on a RAFG truck, with a load of other RAF stores.

Guess I forgot to enter them separately for duty and VAT