On all of the aircraft I have ever owned it is the rear face of the propeller blades that I have to clean squashed insects from, not the front. Why is this. I presume they don’t suddenly decide to fly backwards as they encounter a propeller?
The circumferential speed of the propeller blade near the tip is something like five times the forward speed of the plane. I imagine they move (relatively slowly) though the propeller disk before being struck by the relatively fast blade as it rotates.
if more bugs were on the front rather than back of the blade, that would (roughly) indicate the blades are acting as a net brake, no?
Compare the blades with a wing – both are producing lift. The air is relative to the wing smashing against the downward side of the wing, the side with high pressure. The same with the rotor blade, so you have the flies on the “downside” of the blade from the front edge to the end edge and on the “upside” just a few bugs in the front part- means near the nose of the blade.
