WWI Four Blade F.E.8 Aircraft Propeller

A particularly fine mahogany propeller. The proportion and scale is particularly good and four blade examples have become difficult to find.
It was made by the workshops of Ruston (one of the largest British builders of aero-engines and aircraft during the War) and dates circa 1916.
The prop. comes from a Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.8 aircraft which is a design dating to May 1915. At that time there was no satisfactory British design available to fit a forward-firing machine-gun to an aeroplane without recourse to the crude application of steel deflector plates on the airscrew. Designers therefore resorted to the pusher layout with the airscrew (propeller) on the back of the aircraft behind the pilot. The F.E.8 was designed by Mr. J. Kenworthy and was one of the most handsome pusher fighters built during the war. The standard engine was the 100 h.p. Gnome Monosoupape although the F.E.8 was also flown with the 110 h.p. Le Rhone and 110 h.p.Clerget engines. The first production F.E.8s in France were with No.29 squadron on July 1st 1916 and it remained in service as the last pusher fighter in the field until July 1917.

The easiest way to convey the dimensions of the propeller are that it takes up a wall space that is square with 178 cm sides.