Seen While Riding: Anyone Lose a Propeller?

May 23, 2021

Seen While Riding: Anyone Lose a Propeller?

I could be wrong; I mean it is certainly not an area of expertise, or even moderate familiarity really but, by and large, the photos I have seen of paraplanes suggest that the propellers don't usually have nose cones. Thanks to a partially intact sticker, I looked up Tennessee Propellers, Inc. They are out of business since the end of 2019; photos on the website, however, suggest either a Standard UL blade shape, or a paraplane blade shape. I suppose if I could get the nose cone off it would allow me to see how many bolt holes there are - four for paraplane, or six for standard UL and I could have something like a definitive answer - paraplane or airplane?

I was going to content myself with posting a bunch of photos from the morning ride - on Facebook, no blog post; I just didn't feel like composing anything today, and anyway it was just an average, run of the mill, nothing unusual ride. But then, as I was riding the last little bit of dirt road, the road that would be Miramar if Miramar went through, I saw something. What I saw wasn't Coyote, although he had just run across the way right here and I was going slow looking for him. I realized that I am normally going fast at this point, and that was probably why I never noticed the red before. Curiosity got the best of me and, forgetting about Coyote, I went over to satisfy it. As I got closer I realized the red metal was only part of what I saw; there was finished wood too, red-tipped. Holy moly, it's a propeller. I tried to recall any recent plane crashes at Cable Airport just across the way to the southeast. It seemed like there had maybe been a couple, but couldn't remember specifics. There was one in June 2020, there was one in August 2012, there was one in September 2018, May 2019, November 2019; none of those seemed to be quite in this area though.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas about who this might belong to let me know. I didn't haul the danged thing out, but I did move it a few feet further out of view, just in case the FAA contacts me and wants to collect it.