My RV-7A came with a Catto three blade prop on an AeroSports Power 0-375.
I've flown it almost 100 hours and have always been impressed with the smoothness and lack of vibration with this prop.
A few months ago I decided to have a refurbishment done at Catto Props.
They fixed nicks and painted the prop with new colors. They also performed a static balance procedure. I installed the prop yesterday and flew the plane for about 1.5 hours. At startup and taxi I noticed a significant amount of vibration that was previously not there. However, after taking off and accelerating to cruise RPM of about 2600rpm, the vibration was gone. Cruised for a while at 9500 ft, at 2500- 2650 RPM and felt very little vibration, ( like I was used to).
When I returned to land and reduced speed to land, the vibration was back!
My hangar mate has a Dynamic Balancing kit and we are planning on performing this procedure tomorrow. Note: There are a couple of weights installed on the starter gear from a previous dynamic balance done by the original builder.....
We are planning on removing these weights from the starter gear and then checking it with the instrument and adding weights as required. Hoping that this will solve the excessive vibration issue.
Would be interested in anyone's thoughts/ experience/ advice on this matter. I just find it curious that IF the prop is out of balance, wouldn't I see vibration throughout the RPM range? Again, the vibration is quite excessive at low rpm, but smoother than ever at 2600rpm......???
Thanks
I've flown it almost 100 hours and have always been impressed with the smoothness and lack of vibration with this prop.
A few months ago I decided to have a refurbishment done at Catto Props.
They fixed nicks and painted the prop with new colors. They also performed a static balance procedure. I installed the prop yesterday and flew the plane for about 1.5 hours. At startup and taxi I noticed a significant amount of vibration that was previously not there. However, after taking off and accelerating to cruise RPM of about 2600rpm, the vibration was gone. Cruised for a while at 9500 ft, at 2500- 2650 RPM and felt very little vibration, ( like I was used to).
When I returned to land and reduced speed to land, the vibration was back!
My hangar mate has a Dynamic Balancing kit and we are planning on performing this procedure tomorrow. Note: There are a couple of weights installed on the starter gear from a previous dynamic balance done by the original builder.....
We are planning on removing these weights from the starter gear and then checking it with the instrument and adding weights as required. Hoping that this will solve the excessive vibration issue.
Would be interested in anyone's thoughts/ experience/ advice on this matter. I just find it curious that IF the prop is out of balance, wouldn't I see vibration throughout the RPM range? Again, the vibration is quite excessive at low rpm, but smoother than ever at 2600rpm......???
Thanks