Anyone knows the problems the propeller airplanes had before the invention of the jet engine?

Answer 1

Propellers only work until the blades reach the speed of sound, then the airflow detaches, progressively, starting at the tips of the blades and you don't get thrust any more. If you are doing 500kts your blades are probably supersonic at the tips and you are maxed out. As the blades go supersonic there is a sudden increase in drag and the blades start to generate shock waves and high noise.

Jet engines have no such problem, they do need subsonic airflow (scramjets are the first supersonic airflow engines) but that is managed by intake design on supersonic aircraft.

There are propfans, these appear to be largely forgotten right now but they were experimented on in the 1980s and almost got in to production. A propfan can be viewed as an unducted fan or an exotic turboprop. In any case they had what looked like a contra rotating prop with sharply curved, short, thick blades.

Answer 2

Because the propeller is spinning as well as moving forward the tips of the blades would break the sound barrier long before the aircraft did. The resulting shockwaves would cause both a loss of effectiveness and some buffeting of the aircraft itself. So it was impossible to make airplanes fly any faster than they were at the end of world war 2. Also, in order to get better performance you need more power. And as the aircraft engines got bigger and bigger they started to get heavy faster than they gained power, so the benefit just wasn't there.

Answer 3

NOT AT ALLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!
THe guy writing about the supersonic thing is correct. However jets are a lot more fuel efficient there by making the range a lot more great. why do you think all the jets can fly a lot further not because they are going faster. it is because props are restricted to a certain altitued. the higher you go the thiner the air and the faster you can move through the air. Props cant go that high or fast jets can go in a lot thinner air and increase the fuel to speed ratio by a lot giving the jets longer range. And in the airline world range over fuel consumption is what is the most important thing.

Answer 4

The large prop liners were notorious for a lot of vibration and noise for the passengers not to mention trips were a lot longer. The engines were not as reliable as jet engines are today. In the early days of jet travel the public was stunned at the difference. Jet travel was much smoother. The prop liner engines burned special high grade aviation fuel and required a lot more maintenance than the turbofans of todays airliners. Jet engines run on a relatively low grade fuel, a type of kerosene and can perform for hundreds of hours without wear.
.

Answer 5

Propeller airplanes could not go very fast and high. Also propeller engines have more moving parts than jet engines therefore wear out quicker therefore relatively frequent maintenance

Answer 6

The Wright brother's built the plane the right way. Prop in the rear,kinard wing in the front. Propellers are fans and fans work better when they push instead of pull air. WW1 fighters had to shoot through their props before they learned how synchronized the guns.

Answer 7

propellers can only make a plane reach a certain speed -
about 420mph

Answer 8

A propeller can only go so fast before it destroys itself, thereby limiting the speed of theplane.

Answer 9

propellors can only rotate just so fast, becaues they stretch noticably at high rpm. But 420 is a bit low, George.

Answer 10

They had to worry about lower air density, frozen carburators, and other fuel air problems, mainly fixed by using a supercharger, and carb heaters.