'Evening All,
I started this thread because, after a lifelong passion for aviation, I was startled to find a name on a prop that I had never heard of before, in an accident report about my father's fatal crash in 1948. It is remarkable that such (mundane maybe) historical facts become generally obscure so soon after the event.
cwatters: I am now humbled to find that Nash-Kelvinator made 158,134 of the things, and I write this in a study full of aviation books, magazines and manuals, piled around the walls, none of which ever mentioned this manufacturer. Thank you for including that glorious morale -boosting advert.
Brian: Thank you for all your links - The official pilot's notes I see, do say re, feathering button, "if it does not spring out, it must be pulled out" - so, some warning there to stretch over to the right of the cockpit, feeling for the button though your service-issue flying glove whilst fighting the overspeeding prop with feet and left hand. Sadly, the ferry pilot's notes that I have in front of me do not contain this useful tip, (my dad was with No. 1 Ferry Unit at the time). Your Lancaster story is a wonder! I will run that past my own veteran Lancaster friends.
Check out
The de Havilland Mosquito Page for the hair -raising story of picking up a brand-new mossie from a maintenance unit in 1947 - loosing one engine, then both, (fuel contamination) and then pushing the feathering buttons and finding that they had not been connected! A very high speed crash followed with 2 SOB surviving.
Health & Safety was not a wartime priority and Cockpit Ergonomics were undreamed of in those times) but if you you read the records, the number of post-war crashes, (with mossies featuring in high numbers), is extraordinary.
My thanks to all for enlightening me, as you have, reference my question - Tech Log delivers again! Thanks also to the moderators for not pushing this down the screen to the Aviation History Thread before the Tech Log contributors worldwide could could bring their contributions to the party.
IanBB