Yukon, time in service with no issues will never happen. Hartzell has numerous AD's on there propellers over the years and everyone still runs them. AD 77-12-06, blade seperation at the retention area is a prime example of one AD that seems to mimic the WW blade problem and we now all have no problem in running that propeller. Propeller are the most stressed part on a aircraft and they are usually the first part that will show service defects because of that.



James A Dean
American Propeller Service

You pay your money and you take your chances...
 

I try not to get sucked into these debates, but here I go anyway...

I debated a long time about props. I had pretty much decided to go with a Hartzell, but didn't want to have to put the battery in the back of my RV-8a. It seems silly to run those big cables that far and I wasn't willing to ground to the longeron either.

I planned on ordering a new BA prop from Van's, but looked hard at used Hartzells. Every single one I looked at had a hub AD requiring Eddy Current inspection every 100 hours. :eek:

It was about that time that the recall with the WW-151 happened and American Propeller came on board. Whirwind handled that recall well, and I was much more interested in them as a company now that they had an independant prop shop behind them.

I talked to Kevin at American Prop at some length. I wanted his opinion, because American Prop is a dealer for all the major propeller manufacturers--certified and not. His impression of Whirlwind was very favorable. We spent a lot of time comparing the pros-and cons of all the props they sell and I wound up ordering a WW-200RV. I was influenced greatly by the weight issue, but also by the fact that a Harzell hub as many more wear parts (27 wear parts in total) in it than the McCauley hub on the WW-200RV. The 200RV has never had in in flight failure, and the only issues have been with the spinner bulkhead cracking problem of a couple of years ago. I like the idea of the 200RV having a certified hub that was originally designed to swing MUCH heavier prop blades.

That said, there is some risk with composite props, and carbon fiber in particular. In its laid up form, it's a hard material to get consistent material properties from. In my area of the aerospace industry, we're starting to stray away from carbon pressure vessels for that reason. They're really good unless they're really bad. There's no identifiable reason the bad ones are bad, they just fail in a non-linear fashion. I'm not sure how my experience with pressure vessels compares to our props though. Our props certainly aren't as narrow margin as the vessels I'm talking about, nor do they see the environments.

In summary, there's risks with any constant speed prop purchase. There's not a single constant speed prop out there that doesn't have a long and expensive (and sometimes dangerous) laundry list of issues. After weighing these, I chose a WW-200RV. I didn't really consider the 151, since I also have a single electronic ignition on a fuel injected O-360 and that's right at the upper bounds of what the 151 was designed for. It's right in the middle of what the 200RV was designed for.

Buy the prop you want and feel comfortable with. There are certain well meaning naysayers on the list that will try and browbeat anybody that will listen into making the same choices that they did. FWIW, The general public thinks your foolhardy and crazy for flying in small airplanes--much less building your own! Now like then, make your own decision.

One more data point.
 

Ooops, forgot this data point.

A local RV-7 owner with an IO-390 and a WW-200RV sold his WW prop and installed a 74" BA Hartzell, hoping that the longer BA prop would improve his performance. I saw him a couple of weeks ago. He told me that his WW-200RV wound up being a couple of kts faster than the 74" BA Hartzell.

Information request; certainly not a knock.

We all know Hartzell does in-flight strain gauge telemetry on blades and hubs. Pretty sure the same is true for McCauley and all other certified installations. I know MT does the same or similar for at least some models; a friend assisted a factory engineer with a test series. Has Whirlwind done this sort of data collection for any of their models?

http://rgl.faa.gov/Regulatory_and_Guidance_Library/rgAdvisoryCircular.nsf/1ab39b4ed563b08985256a35006d56af/4cfce91224a85b8586256acd00707ebb/$FILE/ac20-66a.pdf

True, James, there will always be issues. However, when customers are having problems after 100 hrs, I think more testing is in order, and not at customer risk and expense.

The millions of flight hours on Hartzells has indeed yielded product improvement. If a certified prop went bad after 100 hours or less, there'd be **** to pay.

Definition of Opinion?
 

Zonie Yuke:

Wine has nothing to do with it, value does. To each his own, but I stand by my opinion and offer that this kind of value, customer service and product is not available from others. Having owned several other brands of props, including the king of defects, excusec me ADs, I stand by the guys at WW.

Nuf Said and I am finished on this subject!

BTW: IE is also a spelling error! Robby "Hard" Knox

did not read the whole thread but...
 

I thought I would throw this out for everyone; the fan blades on the GE90 are composite...



Rolls Royce has been dabling in composite fan blades for years as well, though I don't know which of their models have them.

Ok, I admit I'm stirring the pot... but interesting stuff none the least.