The good news is, that this will be my last contribution to the list.
After this message i will unsuscribe, and withdraw from the Europa
community. I will not go again through the horror caused by a failing prop.
The one question remaining is which Woodcomp SR3000 was tested by the LAA?
The following are quotes from private messages from Woodcomp owners in
no particular order.
"I think I was wrong in my guess that the pitch might have gone past the
normal fine limit as the defective switch was the back up one."
"I have heard of a Woodcomp prop stripping off some of its carbon fibre
sheathing in heavy rain, but having said that probably the majority of
the guys that I have flown with (& my own plane) have Woodcomp props
that have shown absolutely no effect. "
"but yes I have tested my mechanical stop It is strong enough to stop a
runaway electric motor I guess 100hp more powerful than the fitted one
and comes into action a degree or two past the usual position so still
capable of producing reasonable thrust"
"Jos, I thought I would bring you up to date with the prop. On taking off
the motor I found that the drive gear that is on the end of the motor drive
shaft was not on the shaft. Instead it was inside the hub, loose."
"Incidentally there are mechanical stops on each of my blades in the
form of a bolt which projects into a groove in the blade root. The range
is limited from 9 to 29 degrees as measured at the very tip. You can see
---From the picture of mine (with the loose bolts) and an earlier factory
one, that they have not always had this feature"
"On each occasion they replaced almost everything that showed any signs
of wear. Brushes, gears, micro switches, wiring etc and the blades when
returned could be mistaken for new"
"Found that one spinner screw was missing and gota complete new spinner
fastening set free of charge"
"I had two motor failures, and now always carry a spare"
"More recently like last year I mentioned a small amount of play in my
blade set, and they sent me a kit f.o.c.
for the hub. It was an upgrade consisting of different gears and spring
washers, which I installed myself and everything seems fine now."
"someone having some teeth break on the gearing that determines the
pitch angle of each blade and this was promptly dealt with by Woodcomp
replacing it both on new models and retrospectively with a slightly
heavier version of the gears"
"I had my SR3000 motor burn out which took my pitch to fully fine and on
to the stops"
"since my propeller return to service I make a point of flying it
manually if the conditions are poor"
"I am very pleased with my SR2000 approaching 300 hours. I have one
failure though"
"To avoid problems as much as possible I always switch to manual before
take-off and landing"
"Back on topic, I only had it checked once by a local dealer because of
some play of the blades"
"Forget about automatic pitch control below 1000 feet"
"I am also not convinced that Woodcomp engineering is really robust"
"We made the special propeller for David"
"Do not underestimate the speed of the woodcomp pitch motor: It will go
---From fully fine to fully coarse within one second"
Regards,
Jos
|