NASM P-61 Question

[SaxMan]

I was out at Udvar Hazy last week doing a walk-through for an upcoming corporate party that my company is providing entertainment for, including the band I play in (nothing quite like getting to go to the museum on the company's dime!). While I had to pay attention to the event coordinator, there still was enough time for me to get a good look at everything.

I first went when it opened, so there were a fair amount of planes in the museum that weren't there at my last visit. Of those planes, the P-61 was definitely at the top of my list to see. The one thing that struck me on the P-61 was how wide the propeller blades were. They seemed almost comically wide. I've seen the P-61 at the USAFM in Dayton some years ago, and don't remember the prop blades being as wide as the one at U-H, but, again, it's been well over 15 years since I've been to Dayton. Were those the standard propellers issued for the P-61, or were they experimental, since the plane was assigned to NACA?

It was also neat seing the Do 335 and the fuselage of the He 219, among others.

They are setting our band up along the right side of the SR-71, facing towards the P-61, so I'll get to admire the P-61 all night long.

[DaveM2]

SaxMan

We will be doing a few pages on this P-61 as part of the final installment of our Garber series as one of the 'restoration examples'. Nothing on the prop blades but will ask the author of the article...

Dave

[JDK]

We touched on this aircraft in our recent Night Fighter feature in Flightpath V22 N1 (on which several WIX members helped; thanks guys!) but like Dave also says, I don't recall any mention of the props or prop testing. There's a history of the aircraft on the NASM site, and that doesn't mention props, IIRC.

If I could play Sax, I'd envy you (twice over)!

[TAdan]

NASM



NMUSAF



They look to be the same/similar to me.

[mlenoch]

Might anyone know of the similarity between the wide chord prop blades on the P-61s and P-47s? A quick glance makes them appear very much the same. Coincidence or are they the same type of blades? Plus, weren't the wide chord blades on the P-47 made by simply welding "chord extentions" to the blade trailing edges? Was this the same explanation for those wide chord P-61 blades? (IIRC, wasn't the P-47 prop blade discussed in a previous thread?) [Wow, sorry about all those questions....but, I gotsta know, man!! ]
Thx,
VL

[Richard W.]

That's a good question. I hadn't noticed before, but they do look very similar.

NASM P-47:

[Shay]

Looks like these types of props were used on "C" models

From Joe Baugher's:

Paddle-bladed A.O. Smith propellers were fitted in order to take advantage of the increased engine power. Performance predictions included a maximum speed of 430 mph at 30,000 feet.

This is my "Irony Moment of the day" as I work for A.O. Smith The Handy Company history pamphlet says that from between 1942 to 1945 A.O. Smith manufactured 46,700 propeller blades.

Also found that they were used on P-47s (atleast tested) and were as Vlado described: http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-47/p-47d-74616.html

Shay
_____________
Semper Fortis

[DaveM2]

OK-here is the answer from Scott Willey who is the author of our Garber series,and one of the guys who worked on the aircraft...

"The memory of the NMUSAF bird is a bit off. Take a look at the website and you'll see they are the same props. What you're used to seeing is the props on the majority of the P-61s (A and B models) were Curtiss 12-2 models. Constant speed and full feathering for use with the P&WA R-2800-10 and -65 engines. But with the bigger-chord 12-8 blades were used on the Cs and the F-15As with their turbo model R-2800-73 and -77 engines. Both Moonlight Serenade and our bird are Cs and have the 12-8 blades. WEP on those engines was up to 2800 hp, so it needed a little more blade area to translate that into thrust!"

[SaxMan]

OK-here is the answer from Scott Willey who is the author of our Garber series,and one of the guys who worked on the aircraft...

"The memory of the NMUSAF bird is a bit off. Take a look at the website and you'll see they are the same props. What you're used to seeing is the props on the majority of the P-61s (A and B models) were Curtiss 12-2 models. Constant speed and full feathering for use with the P&WA R-2800-10 and -65 engines. But with the bigger-chord 12-8 blades were used on the Cs and the F-15As with their turbo model R-2800-73 and -77 engines. Both Moonlight Serenade and our bird are Cs and have the 12-8 blades. WEP on those engines was up to 2800 hp, so it needed a little more blade area to translate that into thrust!"

Thanks! That makes sense. It had been 17 years since I saw the NMUSAF bird, so my memory was off on that, but at least compared to the pictures I had seen of the earlier P-61s, they do have wider blades...so I'm not crazy!

[SaxMan]

...If I could play Sax, I'd envy you (twice over)!

Thanks, James. While I could not afford a true warbird, a number of the horns in my collection are pre-World War II American horns. The older American horns just had a sound to them.

My "working" horn that I use is a 1945 Buescher "Big B" Tenor. Buescher was the only instrument manufacturing company allowed to continue making instruments (albeit on a very limited basis) during the war. As a way of "celebrating" the end of the war, Buescher put a larger bell flare on these horns (larger bell = more spread = more volume), with this particular one being among the first to have the larger bell.

The pride and joy of my collection is a magnificently restored 1927 Conn New Wonder Series II baritone sax. These were generally considered the best sounding baritone saxophones ever made. That is why Gerry Mulligan (great jazz baritone saxophonist) used these horns. We have a good deal of circumstantial evidence tracing this horn particular back to the Sammy Kaye Big Band, where it was used from the formation of the band until the mid-1960s, when it was unceremoniously "retired". It passed through at least one other owner before appearing in a pawnshop in New York in 1980. A puppeteer from Maryland bought the horn, and seldom played it. I bought it from him in 1990, unrestored, and having no idea of the horn's pedigree or history. Only with the advent of the internet did I realize what a gem I had discovered. It was restored in 2002 for its 75th birthday back to the original style silver plate when it came from the factory in 1927.