Found this on Youtube it answered alot of questions I’ve had.
(1) King Air Propeller Demonstration - YouTube
The RPM reduction is tremendous so am I to assume the thrust reduction has to be the same?
Why do we not see our props feather?
I could be wrong but I don’t think the prop animation reflects the props being feathered unless the prop is spinning very slowly.
I think there is an addon that fixtures this in the King Air.
A feathered propeller does not produce any useful thrust. The MSFS prop animations are wrong, you can change propeller blade angle with engine off for example, this is not possible as oil pressure is required.
2 Likes
When I feather the prop I don’t any speed. I don’t know if the modeling is correct.
If you turn the pump on as they did in that video. But you won’t see the blade angle change in MSFS.
feathering is also called “bite”
What pump? The governor pump is engine driven. You can’t change blade angle with the engine not running. In case of PT-6 (Kingair, C208, TBM) this means the prop will be in feather position when shutdown. After start-up the prop will either unfeather or remain feathered depending on prop lever position as soon as oil pressure becomes available.
1 Like
Never heard of that and I’m flying multi-engine prop planes (piston and turboprop) for over a decade.
Get some altitude, kill the throttle and feather the props. Fly straight and level. When the props slow down and nearly stop, you should see the pitch of the blades at a low-drag angle.
Should be the same on ground then? Don’t see why feathered prop would look any different on ground compared to in flight.
1 Like
Hi,
I followed this from Avsim.com forum:
Feathering the Props with a Throttle Quadrant using FSUIPC7 - MSFS (2020) Tips and Tricks Forum - The AVSIM Community
This really works. Now I am able to feather the props on all aircraft which have a feather function, like the KingAir, Caravan, PC-6, Baron, Seneca etc., using my Honeycomb Bravo. However it needs the full (paid) version of FSUIPC 7.
There used to be a bug where the props wouldn’t feather on the ground I think. I could be remembering it wrong. All I know is that the method I wrote works. Maybe yours does too.
When I feather 1 prop in the Baron or the KA350 I only lose 2 knots. I’m just not sure feathering is working correctly.
Lose 2 kts compared to what?
I went to ground school years ago. That is what the instructor said called it. So maybe he is wrong. idk
I don’t know any other word for feathering. You could explain the propeller blade angle as the “bite of air” the propeller takes every revolution, but this is not a official term rather an explanation and not particularly relevant for feathering as the propeller does effectively nothing when feathered.
1 Like
I’ll just throw out a couple of things. I know the 930 will now feather on the ground just using in-sim controls. (it also does a nice reverse thrust {please don’t get into semantics issue with that here!} now compared to earlier versions, but that’s another story!).
I’ve attached a screenshot we used while testing emergency gear extension with both engines out and feathered on the 350, just so you can see how it looks now.
For whatever it’s worth!
Regards
Isn’t the animation coupled to the left prop lever only or something like that? I don’t know about the Kingair, but on the TBM you can see the blade angle change from feather to fine pitch, to coarse and reverse pitch when moving the throttle through its full range with engine off. That is not correct.
2 Likes
Baron both props at 2700rpm and throttles at 100% approx. 170 knots
If I feather 1 prop speed drops to 167-168 but rpm does not
Based on the original video I posted I was expecting a big drop in speed, and a drop in rpm of the prop I feathered. I get none of that.
That is wrong indeed, you’ll lose 50% of thrust and overall performance loss will be far greater due to asymmetry, rudder deflection required etc. By the way, on the Baron (or any other piston engine with feathering capability) the engine would quit doing that.
1 Like