Palamedes
Well Known Member
So a buddy of mine were talking about my RV10 and he was asking me which propeller I was going to get etc..
He brought up a question that I didn't know the answer to which basically distilled down to;
At what point does adding more propeller blades start to negatively affect performance?
We were all over the place but the conversation was sort of along this line..
Propellers generally have from between 2 to 6 blades for the really big turbopops..
Where as a jet engine has dozens of little blades..
Why do we not see lots of blades on all planes - jets and nonjets alike? My theory was at some point adding more blades negatively affected performance but I have nothing more than wild assertions to back that up.
So why do most Vans aircraft only use a 2 or 3 blade prop? Why not a 6? or 12? etc..
He brought up a question that I didn't know the answer to which basically distilled down to;
At what point does adding more propeller blades start to negatively affect performance?
We were all over the place but the conversation was sort of along this line..
Propellers generally have from between 2 to 6 blades for the really big turbopops..
Where as a jet engine has dozens of little blades..
Why do we not see lots of blades on all planes - jets and nonjets alike? My theory was at some point adding more blades negatively affected performance but I have nothing more than wild assertions to back that up.
So why do most Vans aircraft only use a 2 or 3 blade prop? Why not a 6? or 12? etc..