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Sensenich blades..?

JeremyL

Well Known Member
So this is a two part question and forgive me on the second one if it’s a dumb question for this airframe.

1.) Does anyone have one of the newer 3 blade, ground adjustable, fixed pitch propellers by sensenich for the RV series? If you do (preferably on a 7) how do you like it, and what are you seeing for speeds, climb rate and anything else you can offer up, ie. A pirep.

2.) I see on the Sensenich site that these blades come in max diameter of 68 and can be shortened to minimum 64. My question pertaining to this propeller and probably any other propeller, what will shortening the blade diameter do? I have limited information here, so if anyone with deep knowledge could dump it on me, I am all eyes. I honestly don’t even know if it’s advisable to do this with the RV airframe.

So my learning sponge of a brain is ready, lay it on me.

Thanks, J
 
I can’t give you a pirep on the three blade, but I can tell you what the Sensenich rep told me when I ordered the two blade carbon fiber GA prop for my current RV6 build. The three blade will give you marginal initial acceleration, and minimal climb rate improvement at relatively slow speeds (Vx, Vy) over the two blade version. The primary plus with the three blade is appearance. It just looks cool. Of course this is only on the ground with the engine not running. After the engine is started, it doesn’t matter. Downsides should also be considered - slightly lower cruise speeds because of the extra drag from the third blade, cruise climb in the 125-135K speed range (which I use) might be slightly degraded for the same reason cruise speed is, and it may be a little more difficult to remove your bottom cowl for maintenance, especially if you have a nose wheel.
As far as shortening the 68” blades, I think the only reason to do this is to achieve a higher RPM at full throttle. With a ground adjustable prop that should be pretty easy to control no matter which prop you choose. I guess ground clearance would be the only logical reason to shorten those blades.
I had a 72” two blade GA Sensenich on my 180hp RV4 and really liked it. I adjusted the blade pitch to give me 2700 RPM at wide open throttle. I’ve ordered the same prop for my 180hp RV6, hoping for the same kind of performance and simplicity.
 
Excellent write and thank you very much for your response. I just really love the look and smoothness of the 3 blade propellers. Seems like I should just leave it at the 68 with the ground adjust. I had thought reduce the diameter and adjust the pitch to achieve a little more in cruise, but it’s honestly probably splitting unnecessary hairs. Thanks again.
 
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