Airplane Propeller T-Shirt

The twisted aerofoil shape of modern aircraft propellers was pioneered by the Wright brothers. While some earlier engineers had attempted to model air propellers on marine propellers, the Wrights realized that an air propeller (also known as an airscrew) is essentially the same as a wing, and were able to use data from their earlier wind tunnel experiments on wings. They also introduced a twist along the length of the blades. This was necessary to ensure the angle of attack of the blades was kept relatively constant along their length. Their original propeller blades were only about 5% less efficient than the modern equivalent, some 100 years later.