A single-blade propeller may be used on aircraft to generate
thrust
Thrust is a reaction force described quantitatively by Newton's third law. When a system expels or accelerates mass in one direction, the accelerated mass will cause a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction to be applied to that ...
. Normally
propellers
A propeller (colloquially often called a screw if on a ship or an airscrew if on an aircraft) is a device with a rotating hub and radiating blades that are set at a pitch to form a helical spiral which, when rotated, exerts linear thrust upon ...
are multiblades but the simplicity of a single-blade propeller fits well on
motorized gliders, because it permits the design of a smaller aperture of the glider fuselage for retraction of the powerplant. The counterbalanced
teetering mono-blade propeller generates fewer vibrations than conventional multiblade configurations. Often, single blade propeller configurations are touted as having a much greater efficiency than multiblade propellers, but this is a falsehood outside the inertial losses in spinning a heavier propeller, and the minimal additional drag from added blades. Single bladed propellers are principally used to fulfill engineering requirements that fall outside the scope of efficiency.
Patents
US Patent 2742095 Mechanism for balancing single blade aircraft rotorUS Patent 6619585 Helicopter single-blade rotorUS Patent 5971322- Propeller propulsion unit for aircraft in general
Sources
*https://web.archive.org/web/20070418051732/http://www.glidingmagazine.com/FeatureArticle.asp?id=368
*https://web.archive.org/web/20070202111444/http://www.alisport.com/eu/images/img_news/Volaresett04/VOLARE_SETT04.htm
See also
Samara (fruit)
A samara (, ) is a winged achene, a type of fruit in which a flattened wing of fibrous, papery tissue develops from the ovary wall. A samara is a simple dry fruit, and is indehiscent (not opening along a seam). The shape of a samara enables t ...
single blade-like seed which autorotates in Nature.
Propellers
{{Component-aircraft-stub