Olmstead High Efficiency Propeller

[mclayton]

I have done a little research and have discovered that something called the Olmstead Propeller, an original high efficiency propeller was developed in the early 1900's, and used by the Navy, Glenn Curtiss and others. It reportedly far outperformed all the other propellers of the day. It was developed by Dr. Charles Olmstead.

Recently, I read an article in "Contact!" magazine about high efficiency propellers that have been recently used in racers. Lo and behold, the appearance of these propellers and the Olmstead propeller are very similar. The propeller is much wider closer to the the root and then tapers off to almost nothing at the tip.

Is there anyone who knows any more about these propellers and whatever became of them?

[moosepileit]

Great find on the Olmstead prop. Looks like a Lipps,

Reno racers use them, both in biplane and sport classes w/ fixed pitch

No idea if it would help on the speed range of a Kitfox, the liquid cooled engine has different airflow requirements, for one.

[mclayton]

I think the propeller design invented by Olmstead would certainly work on a Kitfox, as the propeller was designed for aircraft whose speed was in the range of the Kitfox (remember this was when the flying boats typically achieved speeds of 65-85 mph) I am using an aircooled engine (HKS 700E) on the aircraft, although the early aircraft using this design were almost all liquid cooled. I am going to try and reproduce some of the calculations that Olmstead performed. It will be interesting to see what the results show....