Wooden Propellers

Sir,

I was intrigued by the ending to your article “Out of the Past” regarding the fitting of metal strips to the leading edges of wooden-bladed propellers.

I have in my possession a two-bladed wooden propeller, souvenir of service in the RAF. It was originally fitted to a Gipsy Major engine and is of much later date than the one you mention. My propeller also has a metal strip swaged over the leading edge and flush riveted into place. I think that you will find that it is standard practice to fit a thin metal strip to the leading edges of such propellers in order to minimise damage from small objects, e.g. stones thrown up during taxi-ing and take off. There must be very few propellers still in existence with bullet deflectors fitted. To the best of my knowledge bullet deflector plates were made of steel and were fitted only to that part of the blade directly in the line of fire and ran right across the blade from leading to trailing edge.

Exton ERIC K. J. EMERY

[I am inclined to think that the propeller I saw was that from the DH Gipsy Moth. —Ed]