Pills & Propellers

To All:

Some time ago I mentioned having to take something like sixty pills
every day. That generated quite a bit of traffic, some of which was
loud in its disbelief, based on the author's direct, personal
experience as a corpsman, pharmacist or whatever. And they were
right... if they read my message to mean sixty DIFFERENT pills. What
they had overlooked or failed to comprehend was the fact I was taking
pills several times per day. Some pills were taken at three hour
intervals, meaning I took them eight times across a 24 hour day.
Others were taken every six hours (ie, 4 times) some only once, and so
on. Then there was the fact I had to take two, three or four pills to
make up the required dosage. And finally, there were the pain-
killers, some of which were to be 'Taken As Required' up to a certain
maximum per 24hr period.

Just keeping them all straight was a hell of a chore, something I'm
sure I never could have handled on my own. But my wife tackled the
problem with grim determination and not only memorized the names &
dosages, she would track me down whenever I was due for a pill-session
and stand over me until I'd gagged the things down. (Some of the
pills make you want to throw up. I got no sympathy.)

In many cases the local pharmacies did not carry a particular pill in
the dosage called out by the physician. For example, a certain
steroid commonly used by body-builders was only available in 4
milligram tablets. But that same steroid, in 20Mg doses, has proven
to be an effective anti-tumor medication when taken with certain other
drugs. Bottom line is that I was taking the things five at a time and
hitting the local pharmacies for a hundred tablets a week.

Turns out, taking 60 OR MORE pills a day is not uncommon for CANCER
patients.

Ditto for the blood tests; the so-called 'lab work.' Using the team
approach, I've got four physicians (plus a shrink!) not only
prescribing for me (but only one writing the 'scripts so as not to
create conflicts), at least three of the four want to see the results
of period 'lab work.' Sometimes the lab work for one includes data
needed by another but often times it would call for a different
frequency, such as a weekly report versus monthly, or a different
series of tests. This really isn't much of a problem. You can expect
to visit the blood lab at least once a week, the only thing that
changes is how much blood they need to draw. Some weeks it's only a
single sample but sometimes they collect four or even five samples.
But as I said, it isn't a problem since they only need to stick you
once, even if they need to draw five samples.

Then comes the IV's: drugs that are given intravenously. That's
where they plug you into a plastic baggy holding a quart or more of
some medication. You get to sit there and listen to elevator music
while the stuff drips into your vein.

A busy day is when things happen to coincide, typically around the
start -- or the end -- of a month, when you may be scheduled for
xrays, an IV and a five-sample blood-work session. Followed by
hitting the various pharmacies.

These are the logistic realities of trying to deal with a cancerous
tumor and it provides a neat insight into the professional foundation
upon which America's medical system is based. But it also reveals the
role played by the PATIENT. There is no ombudsman to oversee your
treatment; there is no one to protect you from clerical errors.
Indeed, often times the ONLY complete record of a patient's treatment
is the one maintained by the patient themselves... including casual
remarks such as taking sixty pills per day :-)

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Yeah... well, gee whiz an' gosh darn; waytago Bigfella... but what's
that got to do with PROPELLERS?

I'm glad you asked :-)

Kid pops up on the internet and asks what kind of a propeller he needs
for his airplane. And gets five different answers, all of which are
CORRECT, in that they reflect props presently mounted on the nose (or
tail) of successful flying machines.

The truth is, unless EVERYTHING is idential to the kid's airplane, all
of those answers are liable to INCORRECT. So follow me through here.

What defines a prop?

Think about it for a bit and you'll probably come up with diameter and
pitch, such as 54x31. But that barely scratches the surface. You
also need to know if it's a left-hand or a right-hand prop; you need
to know which direction it ROTATES. Then you need to know the BLADE
AREA, as well as the AREA DISTRIBUTION. and finally you'll need to
know how that area is distributed relative to the blade.

Wanna guess what happens when you DON'T KNOW all that stuff? Not
knowing that stuff causes a huge hairy hand to rip your wallet outta
your jeans an' run off with a handful of MONEY. And not just once;
you're liable to have to buy two OR MORE props before you find one
that hits the 'sweet spot;' that lets your airplane perform the way
it should. that's because props are expensive.

Which is why it's a good idea to roll your own. In fact, it works
something like this: You mount a prop on your engine and go fly. In
some cases you don't even have to fly it to know its not the right
prop, just getting the thing up to take-off speed can tell you it's
the wrong choice. In doing so, the prop tells you it needs to be
shorter. Or longer. Or needs more pitch.. Or less.

Did you get that? You haven't even flown the plane and you know the
trial prop is wrong for your particular application; that you need
more (or less) pitch, for example. Or mebbe less diameter; something
shorter... or perhaps the same length but with less 'bite'...
something with less pitch.

If you're wealthy selecting the correct prop may be a trivial chore..
You simply haul out your wallet and order another prop.

But wht about guys like you & me? A well-made prop is worth a well-
made price. And lots of times you can say EXACTLY what is needed,
less diameter or less pitch? And if you've put the prop on the
PROPER end of the crankshaft you can forget about the possibility of
selling it to someone else.

The handy solution to your problem is to learn to make your own
propellers!

Which is a lot easier than most folks think. In fact, the hardest
part of making a prop is convincing YOU that you should give it a
try. Which is what this series of Cancerous Propeller messages will
try to do, beginning with what I've always considered to be the
hardest part of the job: making a good blank. That means gluing and
stacking and clamping a stack of boards into a fence-post sized pile
of lumber. Because once you have a good blank, the remain steps of
the procedure are fairly simple.

And why did I start with pine or whatever is being sold for shelving
in your neck of the neighborhood? Because the first two or three
'propellers' are going to be the gawdd-ugliest things you've ever
seen.

To learn how to do something RIGHT you've got to do it wrong to begin
with. That's what these props are for; they're going to show you how
NOT to carve a propeller. And if you think that's a wacky way to
carve a prop, you're wrong, pard. So let's get busy and make a good
blank. You want a good squeeze-out all the way around.

But get that frown off your face. Every one of those dud props is
worth at least $100... just as soon as you install a clock in the
middle. Seriously! It's a real propeller... you can even type a
little vitae to go along with the prop, saying how its diameter and
pitch indicate it was carved for the Continental A40 engine but that
the prop is no longer suitable for service. And to prevent someone
from trying to use it on an E-2 Cub, you've installed that spiffy
clock in the hub. You can even include a picture of an E2 with an A40
on its nose... and a close copy of YOUR prop, ready to go flying. For
a hundred bucks. No swap meets in your area? No Craig's list? Then
use it as a gift.

Learning to make the blank, then learning to cut the basic angles to
the top & bottom surfaces, is the Basic Lesson here -- those chores
are sucking all the good out of it. After that we get into SMOOTHING
the UPPER surface; making a nice streamlined shape. Then making both
blades IDENTICAL. (That's where grown men have been known to cry.)
But none of it is being wasted; it's all 'good' in the sense that you
have to know it in order to do it.

Once you know how to carve a good prop you simply go looking for
better wood. Birch is okay. Maple is better but the Borg carries
birch and for a lot of you, the box stores are going to be your only
source of wood. There's better glues; real props use different
stuff. But Plastic Resin will work for 'low-power' props, meaning
anything under 100hp. But a prop is a life-time sort of thing; a good
prop will last as long as the airframe, assuming you don't taxi into a
rock. Line anything made of wood, a good prop can be freshened-up by
sanding it down and giving it a new finishing... and then balancing it
to within an inch of its life. Don't worry about checks or dings --
there's lots of ways to deal with such things. And if you decide the
prop has finally had its day, it's still worth a hundred dollar bill
as a clock.

So think about your new career as a Prop Carver. And believe me when
I say there have been days when I had to take sixty or more pills :-)

-R.S.Hoover