The Adoption of the Controllable Pitch Propeller by the Outside World
Canada is not exactly known for having produced several ground-breaking inventions or discoveries in her time. However, the period of rapid technological advancement that she incurred during the third period of the history of engineering in Canada brought with it several important engineering inventions which had their roots in Canada. The creation of the controllable pitch propeller was one such invention which was perfected in Canada and was so successful that this primarily Canadian development spread throughout the world. Wallace Rupert Turnball lived in Rothesay and it was there that he carried out his experiments in aeronautical theory beginning in 1902. His specialty was that of dihedrals which he studied in a wind-tunnel. He looked at water borne hydroplanes propelled by motor-driven airscrews. An airscrew the Great Britain term for a propeller. A standard propeller consists of anywhere from two to four blades each a section of a helix, the geometric form of a screw thread, hence the term "airscrew." The first plane had two air-screws on each side whereas the second one had only one, more highly efficient propeller located at the rear end of craft, near the pilot's seat. However, both had an uneven torque of e
Turnball experimented with all different types of air-screws; some with a 30" gauge track that were 300' long for truck. The Norseman quickly caught the attention of the entire world due to the effectiveness of its design. The news of the Canadian invention spread rapidly. " Come 1914, Turnball had published several scientific articles and found himself one of the world's authorities on the subject. Turnball's invention of the controllable pitch propeller was clearly one of the most successful Canadian innovations in terms of world recognition. The finished product was a propeller whose pitch can be adjusted by the pilot, at different angles, during flight giving the pilot the ability to command the optimal combination of torque and speed for the situation at any given moment from his aircraft. Once perfected, it was quickly bought up by major aircraft manufacturing companies around the world and mass produced to fulfill the global demand, at the time, for such a development in technology. By means of a small electric motor mounted just in front of the propeller, the pitch of the propeller itself could eventually be adjusted which makes for more efficient take-offs and regular flight than what would be achieved with an everyday "fixed blade" propeller incapable of any pitch change. Four years later, on June 6, 1927, again at Camp Borden on Avro Biplane, Flight Lieutenant G. His second and third publications on the subject were entitled "Laws of Air-Screws" and appeared in The Aeronautical Journal, in the October 1910 and January 1911 issues. Brookes took Turnball's controllable pitch propeller for it's first air test. ngine that was in fact destructive to the efforts of the propeller. Upon his return to Rothesay in 1918, after the war, he dove into his research and experimentation on a possible controllable pitch propeller, an idea that he had been developing since the autumn of 1916. Under the supervision of both the Ontario government and the Canadian Air Force, a ground test was run in 1923 on Avro aircraft at Camp Borden, Ontario only to conclude that more research and experimentation was necessary.
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Acceptance Essays
