REFLECTOR: Prince Props

[Tony Babb]

Here's a somewhat different experience from a friend who built his Cozy III.
My friend is an EAA Tech Counselor and Flight Advisor.

Tony

Hi Tony,

Prince props... Weeeelllllll. That's a mixed bag in my opinion. I have flown
two different Prince P-tips on my Cozy III. Here are the problems I have
noticed:
- The first one I had was with fiberglass overlay on maple wood core and
P-tips. All worked fine, also with reasonably good performance. However,
after a period flying with a hot engine, the fiber started to delaminate
from the wood from the hub and outward. This indicates, that the epoxy ( or
polyester? ) used does not have very good temperature characteristics (tG).
- To fix that delamination problem, I decided to pull all fiber off and
re-apply new fiber. But on that occasion, I found that the two blades were
not oriented 180 degrees to one another. I would have expected that to be
the case as a minimum ;-) So, I put it on the shelf.....
- My second Prince prop has carbon overlay on maple. The BID carbon was not
applied correctly for compression or tensile loads. It was laid up span wise
/ chord vise. Also, it was not wrapped over the leading edge. In other
words, it was there for looks only. -Again, I got delamiantions caused by my
hot engine....
- So, I pulled all fibers of..... Just to find a knot in the wood core...
You just do not make props out of knotty wood. It's that simple!
- Anyway, since the prop had flown many hours, I re-covered with 3 plies of
BID carbon, chopped the prop back about 1" on each blade and rounded the
tips. That gave a much smoother prop and better performing prop. I know
because I race the plane..

In other words, I do not foresee and circumstance, under which I would pay
big bucks for a 3rd. Prince prop.....

Jay Skovbjerg
Cozy III
N655DK




-----Original Message-----
From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] On
Behalf Of Andy Millin
Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 12:36 PM
To: 'Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list'
Subject: REFLECTOR: Prince Props


Hello all,

I just spoke with Lonnie Prince.  Prince Props.  P-Tip.

I liked the guy.  His website needs some help, but he seemed to know his
stuff.

He said there are a number of his props being used in the pusher
configuration.  Longeze, Varieze, Defiant, Cozy, and Velocity.

He has a customer that flies his Eze from a grass strip and has no
complaints on either performance or durability.  Quite the opposite.

He has developed props for IO-540 applications, but not for a Velocity.  His
are on standards with 180HP.