the biggest problem with fixed (coarse) pitch propellors was probably that of keeping straight
A friend of mine recently sent me a contemporary article about the development of the Supermarine S5 and S6. Full of very interesting facts and anecdotes. I'll try to post a link.
Pertinent to this thread, was that the torque during takeoff was so high that it tended to bury one of the floats. To try to compensate for this, one float was made bigger than the other!
Slight thread drift, but during development of the R engine, at one point, it was consuming 120 gallons of OIL per hour.
