At Oshkosh 2024, Aero-News Network’s Jim Campbell caught up with JJ Frigge, President of Hartzell Propellers who was excited to talk about several things, beginning with Hartzell’s new Yukon 4-blade propeller for the Cessna Caravan.
The new prop was developed collaboratively with Wipaire, who recently received the STC for the propeller on Wipaire’s modified Cessna Caravan. The Yukon is a 110-inch carbon fiber propeller that is about 20 pounds lighter than other prop options for the Caravan.
JJ noted the prop is available for Caravans with the PT6A-114 and PT6A-140 engines and has 25% better performance in the low-speed end on takeoff rolls both getting off the water and the runway. The company is really excited about that because Hartzell and Wipaire are engaged in co-marketing and co-selling the propellers, and Wipaire has already sold more than 20 including several that week at the show.
The next thing JJ mentioned was a new propeller for the RV series. Hartzell brought an RV-8 to the booth with an all-new carbon-blended airfoil. It’s an all-carbon two-blade propeller, basically a clone of the blended airfoil metal propeller from about 30 years ago and again, it’s about a 20-pound weight saving over the metal with as good a performance that the Van’s community is seeing with the blended airfoil.
When asked about the acquisition of Hartzell by Arcline Investment Management, JJ said he’s feeling good about it. The company’s making big investments, including a 150,000 square foot warehouse next door to the main facility in Piqua. It is being retrofitted into the new home of new composite blade manufacturing as well as the home of the factory service center.
Both of those businesses and operations are getting a bigger footprint to be able continue to grow and to service customers in general aviation on the carbon composite blade side. In addition, the company’s making big investments in the Advanced Air Mobility market with OEMs and the design and development houses to be able to bring Hartzell’s technology onto those platforms. The AAM complements what the company’s doing on the general aviation side, and Hartzell has really great engineering to be able to design for that market with the weight tradeoffs and performance characteristics that are needed.
And Hartzell is not only able to design but also certify and be able to spool up for production. Which JJ pointed out, a lot of companies in the AAM space are not equipped for because while they’re startups with great ideas they don’t have any easy way to scale up. So Hartzell is looking to partner up across AAM and continue to grow the composite business.
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