Reinventing the Propeller
Aeronautical Specialty and the Triumph of the Modern Airplane

This book explores a technology that transformed airplanes into safe, practical tools of war and a means of transportation during the first half of the twentieth century.

Jeremy R. Kinney (Author)

9781107142862, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 March 2017

386 pages, 25 b/w illus. 4 tables
23.6 x 16 x 2.5 cm, 0.67 kg

'… the book is well-researched, well-informed, and richly detailed. It is likely to remain the last word on this subject for years to come.' Alex Roland, Technology and Culture

An international community of specialists reinvented the propeller during the Aeronautical Revolution, a vibrant period of innovation in North America and Europe from World War I to the end of World War II. They experienced both success and failure as they created competing designs that enabled increasingly sophisticated and 'modern' commercial and military aircraft to climb quicker and cruise faster using less power. Reinventing the Propeller nimbly moves from the minds of these inventors to their drawing boards, workshops, research and development facilities, and factories, and then shows us how their work performed in the air, both commercially and militarily. Reinventing the Propeller documents this story of a forgotten technology to reveal new perspectives on engineering, research and development, design, and the multi-layered social, cultural, financial, commercial, industrial, and military infrastructure of aviation.

1. Introduction. The propeller and the modern airplane
2. 'The best propeller for starting is not the best for flying'
3. 'Engineering of a pioneer character'
4. A 'new type adjustable-pitch propeller'
5. 'The propeller that took Lindbergh across'
6. 'The ultimate solution of our propeller problem'
7. No. 1 propeller company
8. A gear shift for the airplane
9. Constant-speed
10. 'The Spitfire now 'is an aeroplane''
11. A propeller for the air age
12. Conclusion. The triumph and decline of the propeller
Essay on sources
Index.

Subject Areas: Aerospace & aviation technology [TRP], History of engineering & technology [TBX], History of science [PDX], Military history [HBW], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW]