Try to beat this new MT prop:
high torque, high performance, low noise, low consumption.. pretty impressing
Next step: as many as turbine itself has 
I saw it at the factory when they were doing some tests on their Cheyenne.
The 5 blades we have on the pilatus look nice but 9 blades…
Just one blade will do…
I saw something on tv about them a while ago but thought the idea had been abandoned in WWI
Wow. I wonder about the “low consumption”. More blades tend to get in the way of each other, aerodynamically, and so reduce effectiveness. I guess these crowded propellers are made to deliver higher thrust without increasing the diameter (noise, clearance, tip speed).
Imagine the governors being capable of continually twisting, and even feathering, all 9 blades. The blades are probably individually de-iced too.
The other benefit is propeller clearance and available power at low speed climbs, but they are usually bad for cruise mpg performance
Too many baldes reduces efficiency if they get in the way of each other, that happens when thick air sits between them otherwise they may improve efficiency when no air is around and radius is constrained, so you may expect low fuel consumption at high altitudes (if more blades increases your ceiling at same HP without too much negative impact on your cruise IAS) but for sure the fuel bill at low altitudes will be steep as this is the case for that aircraft mission: load of up/down on 300nm range?
Remindes me of the unducted fan trials by McDonnel Douglas a couple of decades back. Joke was going when someone would come up with an unfaned duct…
I don’t think all this makes sense. The additional blades drive up cost with very questionable performance claims. My bottom line is those propellers are sold because they look cool and that is mostly it. I did buy two of those wood composite propellers over the years for different aircraft and I would not exchange my current metal propeller for one of them. The blades are just too fragile for my taste.
The only real advantage is that those propellers in the lowest number of blade configuration are simply the cheapest factory new propellers available in many cases.
