Conclusion: The Triumph and Decline of the Propeller

Abstract

The propeller specialists contributed to the development of the airplane during a vibrant period of innovation in North America and Europe from World War I to the end of World War II. The themes of culture, community, specialty, reinvention, and use take the reader from the mind's eye, the drawing boards, workshops, research and development facilities, and factories populated by the specialists to the spectacular aerial pathways, commercial air routes, and battlefields in the sky that the aeronautical community used to change the world. The propeller specialists weave in and out of this overarching Aeronautical Revolution, a period that witnessed the intense technical development of the airplane and the rise of modern aviation. A propeller community existed since the early days of the airplane. During the years preceding and following the Wrights’ first flight at Kitty Hawk, aeronautical enthusiasts experimented with a variety of propeller designs and materials. They focused on improved versions of the Wrights’ fixed-pitch propeller with its permanently set blade angle and made from layers of wood. It was cheap, easy to manufacture, fit well into the established design paradigm of keeping everything in an airplane as light and simple as possible, and, most important, it worked for the thousands of airplanes produced during World War I and into the 1920s. The search for more performance led propeller specialists to reevaluate the status quo regarding the technology. As a result, they pursued simultaneous and interwoven technical trends centered on infrastructure, design, and materials as they began to question their place in the aeronautical community during the war and the immediate postwar period. American and European military organizations established new aeronautical research and development facilities and workshops during World War I to place propeller technology on a practical and operational footing. The central role of the US government in developing propeller testing equipment and techniques provided the fundamental infrastructure for immediate wartime production needs and future advances in the postwar era. Engineers reacted to dynamic design requirements by using their experience from different disciplines to pioneer their specialty within the new field of aeronautical engineering. With the staff, equipment, and procedures in place, development-based organizations like the US Army Air Service's Engineering Division fostered the latest points of departure in propeller technology.