Propeller tips

If it were on the backside, it would or could interfere with the field of view of the pilot. Having a yellow circle in front of your face while flying could be annoying. Almost as bad as having a CFI repeatedly flicking his Bic lighter in front of you while doing a night approach on a moonless night. BTDT. Anyway that is why propellers generally are paint flat black on the aft side, to be invisible while the engine is running. The yellow tips are so ground personnel can see the propeller while spinning, though even that sometimes doesn't work. gv

in article snipped-for-privacy@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com, Hawkeye at snipped-for-privacy@hawkeyeshobbies.com wrote on 11/3/06 3:49 PM:

I've just thumbed through books with photos of P-51s, P-47s, P-40s and Spitfires. There are more photos of all those planes showing the yellow tips on the backsides than there are without. I'd speculate that most props were factory delivered with yellow on both sides, and that in some cases the backsides were overpainted in black as a field mod.

Pip Moss

I have receintly seen both a B-24 and a B-25 with yellow tips only on the front of the prop. Pete

Seems just as likely that the yellow on the back was a field application after ground crew saw or heard about what happened when somebody walked into a prop...

Jack G.

...or maybe *wore* what happened when somebody walked into a prop...

Conversely, there are Navy Skyraiders with white-red-white on the front and yellow on the back.

I just check out our B-25D, B-17G, and our C-47. They are award winning restorations, so I am assuming the paint on the rear of the propeller tips is correct. They are yellow on both sides.

It most definitely would to the ground crew. Propeller-in-the-head disease is almost always fatal.

did a deck crewman loose an arm when the doolittle raiders were taking off?