Has anybody got any experience of operating an MT propeller cica 600 hours a year and being parked outside? Operated mostly off grass with some hours off pretty poor tarmac/concrete runways.
I wanted to know how they compare to mccauley and sensenich propellers.
Don’t do it. We once had a hit from a stone on a 4 blade MT prop on a PA46 and the damage to the leading edge was very substancial. Basically the entire prop was in need of an entire overhaul. It is a wood propeller with a thing layer of composites and a thin metal leading edge. We had the standard leading edge and I remember they did offer a reinforced one but still the blade is wood so when you get a smaller ding on the metal prop you get a huge dent on the wooden prop. On our new plane we have a metal prop and I would never exchange it against a wooden version.
Another point of view is that an MT blade can be repaired. If a metal blade is dinged beyond limits, it’s scrap. I have an MT, and quite like it, though it is far away from the ground. I have flown a number of MT’s, and in all cases, they pleased their owners. I did have very minor debonding at the trailing edge on all three blades, for which the MT manual provides a simple repair, which I accomplished in about an hour. My MT prop has lived outside for the last six years. Next year may see a hangar for it. I’m going to make blade covers for it for this winter.
Same as Pilot_DAR. I have gotten the reinforced leading edges and they work well.
The” wooden core “ sounds much worse than what it actually is: a very high quality plywood structure that delivers great vibration damping (read: smooth running power plant) excellent elasticity ( my prop survived two bird strikes with 2 kg gulls) and enough strength that they a simple fiberglass skin is enough ( no carbon!).
I do have my rants:
- Trailing edge pops open, this sounds and looks much worse than what it really is according to MT and is easily repaired as Pilot_DAR wrote but I still hated it when it happened on my DA40.
- Sitting in the sun and salt water environment of our island, the de-icing pads have developed cracks. Function was not affected, but it did not look nice.
- The back of the blades is very vulnerable to FOD and for this reason alone, I believe that these prop technology is not suitable for operation from unprepared fields.
The dents are way too frequent and can punch all the way through paint, primer to the fibreglass. Looks horrible…
Blade covers are also on my to do list, they must be done properly so as to avoid ingress and permit egress of water… tricky one.🤔
