{"id":16120,"date":"2017-11-07T09:44:05","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T13:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hartzellprop.com\/?p=16120"},"modified":"2017-11-07T09:44:05","modified_gmt":"2017-11-07T13:44:05","slug":"variable-pitch-propeller-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hartzellprop.com\/variable-pitch-propeller-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Hartzell History: The Development of Variable Pitch Propellers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s hard to imagine operating an aircraft without the safety and power provided by our modern instruments and controls. In the early days of aviation, pioneering pilots had to maneuver many aspects of their aircraft manually, including adjusting propeller pitch from the ground.<\/p>\n<p>While variable pitch propellers were tested for years, it wasn\u2019t until 1929 that Wallace Turnbull patented a design for an automatic variable pitch propeller. By 1932, the first variable pitch propellers were used in general operation of aircraft. The benefits of variable pitch propellers soon made them appealing for use in military aircraft during World War II.<\/p>\n<p>An aircraft\u2019s propeller is the source of thrust that propels a plane forward. A propeller\u2019s pitch affects the way the blades slice through the air and generate thrust in flight. Especially at faster speeds, propeller-driven aircraft require adjustable propellers so that the blades don\u2019t stall in flight.<\/p>\n<p>Before the invention of variable pitch propellers, pilots had to use <a href=\"https:\/\/hartzellprop.com\/whats-the-difference-between-a-fixed-pitch-and-variable-pitch-propeller\/\">fixed-pitch propellers<\/a>, which had the pitch determined in installation and could not be adjusted. However, pilots and aviation engineers soon found that changing the pitch of an aircraft\u2019s propeller could provide pilots with greater control over the performance and operational efficiency of their aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>Blade pitch in a variable pitch propeller may be adjusted manually with cockpit controls or automatically as the engine speed changes. Blade pitch is usually regulated by an electrical or hydraulic system, which allows the pitch to continually adjust during flight and adapt to altitude or RPM.<\/p>\n<p>Variable pitch also allows pilots to adjust pitch so the propeller maintains the most efficient flow of air, improving fuel efficiency, safety, and performance of the aircraft. Many of today\u2019s modern aircraft engines require <a href=\"https:\/\/hartzellprop.com\/how-a-constant-speed-propeller-works\/\">constant-speed propellers<\/a>, which are variable pitch propellers that automatically change pitch to maintain a constant rotational speed. These propellers are capable of partly rotating along their longest axis to adjust the size of their \u201cbite\u201d of air based on the speed of the aircraft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s hard to imagine operating an aircraft without the safety and power provided by our modern instruments and controls. In the early days of aviation, pioneering pilots had to maneuver many aspects of their aircraft manually, including adjusting propeller pitch from the ground. While variable pitch propellers were tested for years, it wasn\u2019t until 1929 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":15141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[193,54,162],"class_list":["post-16120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-constant-speed-propeller","tag-fixed-pitch-propeller","tag-propellers"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Hartzell History: The Development of Variable Pitch Propellers | Hartzell Propeller<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Since the early days of aviation, pilots experimented with variable pitch propellers to improve the performance of their aircraft.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/hartzellprop.com\/variable-pitch-propeller-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hartzell History: The Development of Variable Pitch Propellers | Hartzell Propeller\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Since the early days of aviation, pilots experimented with variable pitch propellers to improve the performance of their aircraft.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/hartzellprop.com\/variable-pitch-propeller-history\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Hartzell Propeller\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/HartzellProp\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-11-07T13:44:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta 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