Propeller Basics

9/4/2019 Propeller Basics
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Propeller Basics
March 1, 2002 for Sailplane & Electric Modeler Magazine
The majority of powered model airplanes use a propeller as part of

their power system, and electric models are no exception. Some
models use a ducted fan to simulate jet ight, and some even use
propane or kerosene powered turbines (real jet engines). There are
also a very few models that use apping wings as a source of motive power
(known as ornithopters). However, propellers are still the most ef cient way to
power a model.
Model Airplane
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What Does a Propeller Do?
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Shop now In short, a propeller moves air. It converts the torque of its power source (a
motor or engine) into thrust, and the rotational speed (rpm) into linear speed.
The combination of an electric motor and a propeller turns current (Amps) into
thrust and voltage into speed.
There are two values that express the most important characteristics of all
propellers: diameter and pitch. The diameter is really the diameter of the circle
www.stefanv.com/rcstuff/qf200203.html 1/24
in which the propeller rotates. This corresponds to twice the distance from the
center of the propeller hub to the tip of one blade (for a propeller with an even
number of blades, that’s just the distance from tip to opposite tip).
The pitch is a measure of how far the

propeller would move forwards in one
Electric Flight revolution if it were treated as a screw and
screwed into some solid material.
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Although the measure of pitch treats the
propeller as if it were a screw, one shouldn’t
think of it as an airscrew (the name of a
certain model airplane prop manufacturer Slicing the end off of a propeller blade
reveals an airfoil just like that found on a
notwithstanding). It is really a rotating wing. Different propellers use different
wing, and if you were to take a propeller and airfoils. Some modern electric flight
propellers have undercambered airfoils.
slice it across the blade, you’d see a typical This glow propeller has a flat-bottomed
airfoil cross-section. airfoil.
Fly RC
The size of a propeller is usually expressed in the form diameter x pitch. For
example, an 8×4 propeller has an 8 inch diameter and 4 inch pitch.
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As a very rough approximation, the diameter of the propeller controls the thrust
produced, and the pitch controls the speed of the air leaving the back of the
propeller. In reality, pitch also affects thrust somewhat, but thinking of the two
separately helps to envision how propeller changes will affect performance.
Measuring Pitch
Most propellers are labeled with their pitch and diameter, but it is possible to
determine both given an umarked prop. The diameter is straightforward to
measure of course.
To measure the pitch, lay the propeller at

on a table, measure 75% of the way from
the hub to the tip, and draw a line across
the propeller blade. Measure the width of
Fly Electric the blade at this point, along the surface of
the table (i.e. the width of the blade’s
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shadow if there were a light on the ceiling
Shop now Measurements needed to determine the overhead). Next, measure the height of the
pitch of a propeller should be taken 3/4 of
the way from the hub to the tip. front and the back of the blade, and
compute the difference between these two
to determine the height.
The pitch is then given by the formula:
pitch = 2.36 diameter height/width

Getting Started
in Radio...
There’s nothing magical about the number 2.36; it’s just 75% of π (pi), because
we’re measuring pitch at the 75% diameter mark.
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The reason we measure pitch at 75% of the diameter is two-fold. Generally, the
pitch of a propeller is not completely constant, varying somewhat from hub to
tip to optimize it for the different linear speeds at each point along the blade.
The pitch at 75% corresponds roughly to the average effective pitch of the
propeller. Secondly, the propeller is suf ciently wide at 75% to allow one to get
reasonably accurate measurements of blade width and height.
Power Requirements
Both pitch and diameter affect how

much output power the motor must
produce to turn the propeller at a given
rpm. The following equation shows the
relationship between motor output
power (also called shaft power, or
propeller input power), rpm, pitch, and
diameter: Measuring the pitch of a propeller is easily done
on a flat surface with an accurate ruler.
power = k rpm3 diameter4 pitch
The factor k depends on the units used to express power, pitch, and diameter,
and also on characteristics of the propeller such as the airfoil it uses, its overall
shape, thickness, and so on. For power in Watts, and diameter and pitch in
inches, k is about 5.3×10-15 for an average model airplane propeller.
This formula tells us a number of things. First, it tells us that rpm is not directly
proportional to power. Doubling the shaft power and keeping pitch and
diameter the same will only increase rpm by a factor of 1.26 (the cube root of 2).
It also tells us that increasing the pitch slightly will increase the power
requirements slightly, whereas a slight increase in diameter will result in a
dramatic increase in power needed to maintain the same rpm. For example,
going from a 10 inch propeller to an 11 inch propeller of the same pitch would
require 1.46 times the power to maintain the same rpm (11/10 to the fourth
power). Or, if the shaft power were kept the same, the rpm would drop to 88% of
what it was (the reciprocal of the cube root of 1.46 from the previous result).
The fact that pitch affects power requirements only slightly is very important,
because it means that we can make small changes in pitch to improve model
performance without having to worry too much about increasing current. For
example, if we have a model with a 10×7 prop that has good take-off and climb
performance, but poor high-speed performance, we can switch to a 10×8 prop
and only increase power required by about 14%. Assuming the motor is near its
maximum ef ciency point, current will also increase by about 14%, say from
25A to 29A. Larger changes in pitch should be accompanied by a slight
reduction in diameter to keep the current levels reasonable.
In practice, changing from one propeller to another will change both the rpm
and the power. This is because changing the load on a motor shaft will change
the rpm, which will change the power required, which will change the rpm, and
so on. The motor and propeller combination will nd a new operating point at
which the shaft power produced equals the propeller input power required.
Next month, I’ll talk about how motor output power is related to input voltage,
current, and rpm, and how this can be mathematically connected to the
propeller formula above to predict what will actually happen.
Airflow
As was mentioned earlier, a propeller is really a rotating wing, and as such, is

subject to the same aerodynamic effects as a wing. As a propeller rotates, the
blades meet the oncoming air. The angle at which this happens is a function of
how fast the air is moving towards the propeller and how fast the propeller is
turning. If the air were stationary, the angle of attack of a given section of the
blade would be exactly equal to the blade angle at that point.
In reality, the air is not stationary, even if the plane is not moving, because the
air accelerates before it reaches the propeller. As a result, from the blade’s point
of view, the air is meeting it at some relatively low angle, which is the blade’s
angle of attack.
Like any wing, a propeller blade can stall if the angle

of attack is too high. This can happen with a very
highly pitched blade when moving at too low an
airspeed. It is for this reason that high pitch
propellers, like a 10×9 or 12×12 often exhibit poor
performance at low airspeeds. A plane equipped
with such a propeller will often exhibit poor launch
or take-off performance, and then come alive once
the model is up to speed.
The relative angle of attack of Also like a wing, if the angle is too low, no lift will be
the airflow to the propeller produced. A low pitched propeller on a fast plane
blade depends on the
rotational speed of the blade, (for example, 8×3, 12×5, etc.) can get to the point
and the speed of the incoming where it produces no thrust (in a dive, when gravity
air flow.
is providing the force to keep the plane moving). In
high speed level ight, thrust from such a propeller
can drop too low to overcome drag long before the plane has reached its
designed ying speed. According to Astro ight’s Bob Boucher, such propellers
should be relegated to stirring paint. Of course, this statement was made in the
days before slow- yer models, which often sport very large low pitch props.
For many aircraft, a good compromise is a propeller with a diameter to pitch

ratio of about 3:2 or 4:3 (for example, 8×6, 9×6, 10×7, 11×8, 12×8, 12×9, and so
on). Such a propeller will become unstalled at relatively low airspeeds (usually
below the model’s stall speed), and will remain ef cient at relatively high ying
speeds.
In many full scale aircraft, the propeller has in- ight adjustable pitch, so that it
can have a low pitch for maximum take-off thrust, and a higher pitch for
optimal cruising ef ciency. Some small full-scale aircraft can be tted with one
of three different propellers depending on the need at the time: low pitch for
getting heavy loads off the ground but slow cruising, standard for general use,
or high pitch for light loads but fast cruising.
Three or More Blades
Most model propellers have only two blades because a two bladed propeller is
generally more ef cient than a larger propeller that produces the same thrust
and air speed. A common misconception is that this is due to the blades
operating in each others’ wakes, but this is only a small factor. Remember that
the air in which the propeller is turning is moving away from the back of the
propeller, so the wake from each blade will move backwards too, leaving clean
air for the next blade to bite into. A reasonably pitched propeller would have to
have a large number of blades before they start interfering with each others’ air.
That being said however, a multi-bladed prop does have more induced drag
caused by tip vortices (air spilling over the blade tips, just like wingtip vortices
on a wing), because there are more tips. So, overall ef ciency is lower, in much
the same way that a biplane (even one without struts and bracing wires) is less
ef cient than a monoplane with the same wing area. A multi-bladed prop often
has a larger total blade surface area than the equivalent larger two-bladed prop,
further reducing ef ciency (due to parasite drag).
Multi-bladed propellers do have the ability to turn power into thrust and
airspeed in less space than a larger two-bladed prop though, which makes them
advantageous when ground clearance is an issue (or fuselage clearance for wing
or pylon mounted propellers).
Practical Considerations – Balancing
As electric yers, balancing a propeller is

very important. It’s important on glow
powered models too, but the result of an
unbalanced propeller is a lot less apparent,
due to the noise and vibration of the engine.
On an electric model, an unbalanced
propeller is far noisier than a balanced one.
Furthermore, an unbalanced propeller
wastes power, because it is putting a For best performance, reduced noise, and
increased motor life, all propellers should
sideways force on the motor shaft, pushing be balanced before use. I use a Top Flite
it against one side of the bearing. It also can magnetic balancer, which due to its
nearly frictionless bearings, will show
also cause the shaft to bend somewhat, even the slightest imbalance.
which means the motor armature (in a
direct drive application) runs off-center,
further reducing ef ciency.
I use a Top Flite magnetic balancer, and sand material off the back side of the
heavy blade as close to the tip as possible (the further from the center you
remove material, the less you will have to remove). One of my direct drive
models which sounds like a glow model when own with an unbalanced prop,
becomes inaudible at 200 feet when own with a well balanced prop of the
same brand.
Making It Turn
A propeller with no source of power is useless, so next month we’ll look at how
an electric motor interacts with the propeller to convert electric power to the
form that we need it for ight, namely thrust and airspeed.

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60 Comments Leave a Comment
Lynn Demers
February 20, 2008
I want to thank you for the pitch explanation and measurement process. I have
been looking for that answer for awhile.
Shehar Bano Safeer Awan

October 11, 2010
its too good to learn it from here!!!!!!!!
Robert Pegg
November 06, 2010
Good, simple explanation of the basics!
Shazad Irani
February 02, 2011
good stuff
Zohair Kanga
February 02, 2011
well explained,
“thumbs up”
Anant Saraogi
March 09, 2011
very helpful article
thanks for it
sir can you plz tell me the source from where you got the formula…
power = k rpm3 diameter4 pitch
as i have to show the calculations with the source of the used formulae
Stefan Vorkoetter
March 09, 2011
That formula is taken from Robert Boucher’s “Electric Motor Handbook”,

published by AstroFlight.
Ayberk Okan
May 29, 2011
Helpful article sir.An unbalanced airscrew powered by a glow engine can also
cause dramatic situations depending on the degree of unbalance factor and the
diameter/mass of the propeller.I can’t stop myself thinking that can absolute
factory prebalance be possible because most beginners do not balance their
propellers.They think its unneccessary i guess.It may be ok with a cox engine
maybe but if you are running an OS 140RX it can be very dangerous both for the
humans and investment.
Agus Suprianto
August 15, 2011
please explain to me how to calculate slip, geometric pitch, and effective pitch..??
thank’s before
Loreann Wells
August 26, 2011
can you please explain to me how propeller size effect thrust?
Stefan Vorkoetter
August 26, 2011
Loreann, thrust is equal to input power times ef ciency divided by pitch speed
(where all units are SI).
Les Clark
August 29, 2011
I have a Hendrickson Wood 2 blade prop. The only markings i could nd are
h68f82 21659 .
Can anyone tell me what that means? Thanks Les.
Stefan Vorkoetter
August 29, 2011
Les, I assume you’re not talking about a model airplane prop. I would guess
that one of 68 and 82 is the diameter, and the other is the pitch. If you
measure the diameter and it’s one of these, then you’ll know.
Abdul Wahhab
September 07, 2011
awesomely explained !
Padmanabhan Vijayaraghavan
September 19, 2011
hi give a name of a book where i can nd more abt this and marine prop
Jesse Nderitu
September 30, 2011
am working on a small plane and need some advice,i would like to know why my
plane is failing to lift,has a wooden propeller one piston engine NEED HELP
PLIZ(currently in Uganda )
William Herrmann
October 04, 2011
I am having trouble getting the pitch from my air eld T28 prop as it is a multi piece
prop and the hub i tall there is no listing of pitch i am trying to replace it with a
master airscrew when i replace the motor with a power 32 770kv from a power 25
520kv so i want to get the right prop. plane is 1400mm and about 5.5lbs. motor is
a little under powered or not enough kv for prop size..is about 13in 3 blade.
guessed at a 7 pitch ???? want to use original prop if possible…?????
Bruce Parrott
October 18, 2011
i’m looking for a cheap three blade prop 5″ dia for a de havalland beaver i’m
building out of scrap for fun hanging ornament. Pitch of no importance, just needs
to turn and look right, any help please?
Vikas Agarwal
November 08, 2011
very good and informative
Dixansh Sharma
February 06, 2012
What is the relation b/w thrust and pitch of the propeller..
Paulo
March 09, 2012
A very interesting and informative read !

Thank you sir !
chuck
March 24, 2012
How do you choose an airfoil for a propeller? I need to carve a 1:4 scale Vs11 3-
bladed german propeller for the 1:4 scale Ju87 i’m building
shubham sharma
July 12, 2012
thankyou for this page………….very helpful
Fred G
November 05, 2012
I would like to know how to calculate thrust to payload push/pulling capacity of a

propeller.
Example: If I have a hovercraft that has a gross loaded weight of 600lbs. What size
propeller would I need to push the craft forward at 30 miles per hour, using an
18hp gas engine?
I am concerned about the propeller failing because of load pushing/pulling
stresses on the blade itself
How do I determine how strong a propeller is? I am concerned about a blade
breaking. How do I calculate how much weight a propeller can pull or push with
out blade failure?
Joseph L. McCauley
April 04, 2013
The formula above is not for the motor hp, it’s for the power transmitted by the
prop to the air. This is less than the motor output, which is simply torque times
RPM. The amount by which it’s less is the mechanical ef ciency=power
output/(power input).
Joseph L. McCauley
April 04, 2013
Book: Marine Hydrodynamics, by Newman. MIT Press in the 1970s. The ideas
apply to props in air, props submerged in water, and surface-piercing marine props.
Same physics/hydrodynamics so far as power, etc are concerned.
Stefan Vorkoetter
April 04, 2013
Sorry Joseph, that formula is for the power _absorbed_ by the propeller, not
the power that is turned into useful thrust and velocity. Thus, it _is_ equal to
the power that the motor must output. To get the power _produced_ by the
propeller, you have to multiply by an additional factor that represents the
ef ciency of the propeller (and that factor will vary with speed, medium, etc.,
so it can’t be included in the constsant k).
Antonio Silva
October 14, 2013
Hi Stefan,
We use CF ground adjustable custom made blades in our prop hubs. These are 1/5
scale of the Corsair. I have a pitch adjusting tool I purchased from GSC of Canada,
but this measures in DEGREES pitch. I need to know the equivalent in inches of
pitch (and vice-versa). The length of the blade is 325 mm from the hub to the tip
and I suppose to set the dial at 25% of this distance from the tip, thus 81.5 from
the tip. At this point the blade is 55.2 mm wide.
Is there any software that can do this conversion automatically?
Thank you for any information.
Sander Liivandi
March 10, 2014
Greetings,
I am a student of the Estonian Aviation Academy. I am writing a paper on

construction of a thrust stand for propeller driven UAV engines and I would like to
request permission to use your image about relative angle of attack (in the chapter
titled “Airflow”).
Yours faithfully,
Sander Liivandi
nabil hilmi
April 13, 2014
one thing though.there is another article they did not take 75% of pi.and then again
pi is constant for any circle .that not mean to nd the pitch at the position 75%
of(r) you take 75% of pi..for any circle what ever it is pi is the same pi which it is
constant value ..
Stefan Vorkoetter
April 14, 2014
Nabil, 75% of pi, times the diameter, is the same as pi times 75% of the
diameter. I merely combined the 75% (0.75) with pi (about 3.14) so that one
wouldn’t have to compute 75% of the diameter. That is,
0.75 * pi * d = pi * 0.75 * d = 2.36 * d (approximately).
Val Resnick
June 04, 2014
Stefan, I’m trying to design a ducted fan. It’s small. It is 30mm OD. with a 12mm
dia. hub leaving small blades.
Does the pitch start at the hub and go to the OD ?
How would you calculate the pitch ? The same formula as above?
I’m thinking I could use the tangent of the chord at 75% instead of h/w ?
(I’m designing this in CAD)
Thanks for your time.
Stefan Vorkoetter
June 04, 2014
Val, the blade should be twisted, so that the pitch is constant. So you’ll get a
different angle at each distance from the hub, but the pitch should remain the
same. The only reason we use the 75% point for a propeller is because the
blade is typically the widest there, or near there, thus minimizing
measurement error.
So to compute pitch at any given distance from the centre, use pi * d * height /
width where d is the distance from the centre, and height and width are as
measured at that distance. Or, as you’ve noticed, you can use tan(c) instead of
height / width, where c is the angle of the blade.
EDIT 2019-Jan-21: That formula should be 2 * pi * d * height / width.
santhosh
July 29, 2014
Hello sir …may I know what kind of propeller used in mini rc hover craft for thrust
and air bag ll up ..I’m dng mini project …I need ur help sir thanq
Machia
May 22, 2015
Excellent, but still can’t grasp propeller tip stall. Can you please explain this?
Stefan Vorkoetter
May 22, 2015
Any airfoil, whether of a wing or a propeller, produces lift as a side effect of

the air moving smoothly over its top and bottom surfaces. If the angle at
which the leading edge of the airfoil meets the oncoming air is too high, this
smooth flow is disrupted (the air over the top becomes excessively turbulent),
and the airfoil no longer produces any lift. When this happens with a wing, the
airplane falls. When it happens with a propeller, it stops producing any thrust.
john
November 21, 2015
hello sir, i want to know ho to calculate all the thing about propeller,i wanna to built
a small propeller using pvc pipe(plastic pipe).im used pvc pipe 5 inchi .so after
cutting ,i get 8 piece blade.1 blade radius is 2.5cm and long is 14 inch.
manikandan
January 29, 2017
Hello sir,I am doing one rc aeroplane project.how to select the method of

propeller.the plane will lifted 5 to 6 mgs (add plane weight and payload) ,so which
material is more flexible than wood. thanks
Bob Hodo
June 07, 2017
Fascinated by your article. Do you know if the data you cite re: how an
11 inch propeller needs 41% more power than a 10″ propeller of the
same pitch to turn the same rpm also applies to small aircraft. I own a grumman
cheetah which left the factory as the 150hp version of the 180hp grumman tiger.
The modern props for us are both Sensenich, but the cheetahs is 72.5″ and 61″
pitch, and the tigers is 76″ and 61″ to 65″ pitch. Any idea how much of the extra 30
hp is being used by the 3.5″ longer prop?
Stefan Vorkoetter
June 08, 2017
I expect that it does apply to full scale propellers too. With power (for a xed
rpm) being proportional to diameter4, a 76″ prop should take (76/72.5)4 times
as much power as a 72″ prop. That works out to 1.21 times. 180hp is 1.2
times 150hp, so the prediction is pretty much right on.
Bob Hodo
June 09, 2017
Thanks, Stefan. This is an excellent article about the fundamentals in terms a

layman can grasp. The terminology we use is important. I liked (and use myself)
the term “geometric pitch” as Agus used in his comment. And when I began
measuring in the method you describe I measured the hypotenuse rather than side
B for the simple reason that my caliper can nail it to .001 inches. I use the term
“bite” for side “a” and the term “sweep” for side “B” which you described as the
shadow the blade would make if lit from above on the table. I will be sending links
to this article for folks to read who are interested in discussing the nuances of
measuring their own propellers!
mossey
June 11, 2017
Thank you Stefan. I found your article very useful.
cosy
October 26, 2017
Hy, fantastic work , congratulation.

I found an error: in the section ‘power requirements’, you wrote:
“For example, going from a 10 inch propeller to an 11 inch propeller of the same
diameter would require 1.46 times the power to maintain the same rpm (11/10 to
the fourth power)”
The part “of the same diameter” is wrong and stucks with the goal.
Sincerely yours
Stefan Vorkoetter
October 26, 2017
Thanks for catching this! I’ve corrected it to read, “of the same pitch”.
Hossain
February 10, 2018
Hi,
I took propeller 12”x 6”(Pitch). But when I used ur formula to measure pitch I got
something around 1.6 pitch.
I don’t understand how come measured pitch is different from whats it written in
propeller.
Also, in the pitch formula the units got cancel as same units (hight/width).
Thanks.
Stefan Vorkoetter
February 11, 2018
Perhaps you made a measurement mistake, or the propeller isn’t of the stated
pitch. What brand of propeller is it. What were the measurements? Yes, the
units of height/width cancel, resulting in a ratio which is then multiplied by
3/4 times pi times the diameter (e.g. 12″), giving a result with the same units
as the diameter (e.g. 6″).
Sarvesh
March 12, 2018
Hi!
Thanks for the superb article.
I wonder what this line means “The combination of an electric motor and a
propeller turns current (Amps) into thrust and voltage into speed.”?
Please give me some insights on this analogy.
Stefan Vorkoetter
March 12, 2018
The way an electric motor works, more voltage results in more speed, and
more load on the motor (“thrust”) results in a higher current draw. Of course,
the two are interrelated, since increasing the voltage generally also increases
the load (because whatever is connected to the motor becomes harder to turn
the faster you turn it).
Munaf
May 23, 2018
Hi Mr stefan
Could you please provide a formula for thrust calculation generated by Prop Blades
in terms of Rpm of a propeller blade, blade angle?
AS well as if we have a variable pitch propeller what will be the forces require to
change the pitch?
This two-question helps me a lot for my study.

Thanks
Stefan Vorkoetter
May 23, 2018
A propeller doesn’t have a speci c blade angle. The angle varies as you move
outward from the hub. The amount of force required to change the pitch
would probably vary with the pitch, how fast you want to change the pitch,
and numerous other factors.
Alberto Munizaga
September 09, 2018
Hi Stefan
If I want to takeoff a quadcopter over 4000 meters of altitude, in that case will be
better a 3 blade prop than a 2 blade(better I mean more time flight)? thinking
about the lack of air? I will appreciate your comments. thanks
Stefan Vorkoetter
September 09, 2018
At higher altitude, what you want is a larger diameter prop. The air density is
lower, which means you need to move more air to get the same amount of
thrust (since the quadcopter still weighs the same). However, if you don’t have
room for a larger propeller, a 3-bladed one might help.
Anant
December 09, 2018
Sir i have nd that the pitch of 1045 propeller is 4.5 inch in google ,then i do some
calculation to nd thrust.But that is wrong. rstly rpm and thrust i nd
practically.Now by applying your pitch formula the answer is approx right.But
sometime i thought that 4.5inch is the pitch of one prop.I am totally confused
where i am wrong.please give me answer as soon as possible.
Stefan Vorkoetter
December 10, 2018
Anant, I’m sorry, but I don’t quite understand what you’re asking. You said you
did a calculation and it was wrong, and then you did a calculation and it was
right. But yes, a 10×4.5 propeller has 4.5 inches of pitch.
Christi
January 21, 2019
I’m confused. This is your original equation:

Pitch = 2.36 * diameter * (height/width)
In your comment to Val Resnick, you said that the following equation can be used
to calculate the pitch at any distance:
Pitch = pi * distance from center * (height/width)
I’m confused because (2.36 * diameter) seems to be more than (pi * distance)
when measured at the 0.75 mark.
For example
height = 1″
width = 4″
Diameter = 16″
Distance @ 0.75 mark = 6″
Pitch = 2.36 * 16″ * (1/4) = 9.44
Pitch = pi * 6 * (1/4) = 4.71
Why are the two formulas not equal? What am I doing wrong?
Stefan Vorkoetter
January 21, 2019
You are correct. The formula I gave Val should have been 2 * pi * distsance *
(height/width). I have added an edit to the original comment.
Christopher Knee
February 07, 2019
Some of Top Flite props have a designation 18×6-10 (part number TOPQ5216)!
Do you know what these THREE numbers mean?
Also, Vess props have a 23A and 23B prop. As far as I can see by performance data
(From forum: FlyingGiants > Gas Engines > Real world rpm), a 23A prop is close to
a 23×8 prop. So does A = 8, B = 10 etc?
Finally, (see thesis SMALL-SCALE PROPELLER PERFORMANCE AT LOW SPEEDS by

JOHN BURTON BRANDT, B.S.E., Arizona State University, 2003), Brandt chose to
ignore Top Flite, Vess and wood props. The highest ef ciency prop was the APC
thin electric 17×12 at 69%. Unfortunately, there was no analysis of the prop
geometry to the prop performance so as to show what constitutes a good prop.
Stefan Vorkoetter
February 08, 2019
From what I recall, the Top Flite props have non-constant pitch, with lower
pitch at the tips for higher thrust at low speeds. In my opinion, it’s marketing
mumbo jumbo. What you have is a prop that’s not ideal at any speed. I’ve
never heard of Vess props before, but if they choose not to follow standard
conventions for labeling their props, then I can’t take them seriously.
Everyone else uses the DxP convention, from the tiniest model airplane prop
manufacturer to the makers of full-scale propellers.
Graham Hill
February 10, 2019
Great Artice thanks Stefan. I’m a little confused though regarding your mix of
‘diameter’ and ‘radius’ when measuring ‘pitch’.
You say – “measure 75% of the distance from the hub to the tip of the prop’ ” – but
then the formula you quote, uses diameter. Surely you have measured 75% of the
‘radius’ of a prop’ blade and not 75% of the diameter – which would actually be
50% (half-way) along one of the prop’ blades …
Can you clarify that for me please … Thanks
Stefan Vorkoetter
February 10, 2019
The “75% of the distance from the hub to the tip of the prop” is to nd the
spot at which to measure the blade width and height to determine the pitch.
The formula expressed in terms of diameter is still correct.
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Propeller Basics

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Propeller Basics

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9/4/2019 Propeller Basics

The majority of powered model airplanes use a propeller as part of

The pitch is a measure of how far the

To measure the pitch, lay the propeller at

The pitch is then given by the formula:

pitch = 2.36 diameter height/width

Both pitch and diameter affect how

power = k rpm3 diameter4 pitch

As was mentioned earlier, a propeller is really a rotating wing, and as such, is

Like any wing, a propeller blade can stall if the angle

For many aircraft, a good compromise is a propeller with a diameter to pitch

Three or More Blades

Practical Considerations – Balancing

As electric yers, balancing a propeller is

60 Comments Leave a Comment

Shehar Bano Safeer Awan

its too good to learn it from here!!!!!!!!

Good, simple explanation of the basics!

very helpful article

power = k rpm3 diameter4 pitch

That formula is taken from Robert Boucher’s “Electric Motor Handbook”,

can you please explain to me how propeller size effect thrust?

Can anyone tell me what that means? Thanks Les.

very good and informative

What is the relation b/w thrust and pitch of the propeller..

A very interesting and informative read !

thankyou for this page………….very helpful

I would like to know how to calculate thrust to payload push/pulling capacity of a

I am a student of the Estonian Aviation Academy. I am writing a paper on

0.75 * pi * d = pi * 0.75 * d = 2.36 * d (approximately).

Does the pitch start at the hub and go to the OD ?

Thanks for your time.

EDIT 2019-Jan-21: That formula should be 2 * pi * d * height / width.

Any airfoil, whether of a wing or a propeller, produces lift as a side effect of

Hello sir,I am doing one rc aeroplane project.how to select the method of

Thanks, Stefan. This is an excellent article about the fundamentals in terms a

Thank you Stefan. I found your article very useful.

Hy, fantastic work , congratulation.

Thanks for the superb article.

Please give me some insights on this analogy.

This two-question helps me a lot for my study.

I’m confused. This is your original equation:

Finally, (see thesis SMALL-SCALE PROPELLER PERFORMANCE AT LOW SPEEDS by

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