The Little World

Well, you don’t want a dirty propeller, now do you. Sign of a badly-maintained aircraft, that. All greasy around the spinner, like…

Actually, I got to wondering at who decides what colour the propeller on an aircraft should be, and why. Some reasons seem evident, but some are obscure.

a. American aircraft prior to WW2 seem to have bare aluminium props. That’s fine – saves on paint and you can see damage easily. The propeller tips are sometimes coloured to alert the ground crews to the spinning peril, but they do not seem to have a standardised pattern. I see red tips on some Army ships and red-yellow-blue ones on some Navy planes. I’m guessing yellow would not stand out as well against the silver colour.

b. British props seem to be mostly black with yellow tips of various sizes. Sensible – the yellow circles stand out against the black as the thing spins. Question – does the black prop spinning disappear better from the pilot’s view as he goes than a silver one would?

c. Why are Japanese propellers deep brown? I think it looks attractive, but I still don’t understand the rationale with it. I note that some planes have broad yellow bands on the leading edges of the wing in the area swept by the propellers – this may be they same warning that the yellow tips provide for the British.

d. None of the German aircraft I see have anything but a black propeller with no tip colouring. Were German ground crews that much better at dodging through the flight line or did they just get chopped up more?

If ground safety is paramount, why not paint the landing gear legs a bright colour as well? They mostly disappear behind doors as the plan’e undercarriage is raised anyway.