Some Stratocruisers indeed were delivered with CurtisElectric propellers, however, all operators changed over to Hamilton Standard Hydromatics for one very important reason...the CurtisElectric props, apart from being very complicated and maintenance intensive, had hollow steel blades, which were prone to severe corrosion, especially under the de-ice boot.
In addition the
only DC-6 to ever have CurtisElectric propellers crashed many years ago at KVNY because....one prop blade separated from a RH side engine, tore the engine off the wing (it landed on the departure runway), said prop blade then travelled through the lower fuselage, severing hydraulic lines in the process, then entered the number two engine, disabling the number two propeller AC generator, thus rendering the the number two prop uncontrolable.
Now, the 'ole DC6 could indeed fly in two engines, but, the landing gear was down, and could not be raised (no hydraulics), so performance was severely limited.
The cause of the blade failure?
Undetected corrosion under the blade deice boot.
Those old CurtisElectric props were bad, bad....bad.
