Let’s draw an airplane propeller step by step. Tools needed: paper, gray pen, drawing compass, orange pen, gray pencil, orange highlighter pen, red pen.
Step-By-Step Images and Instructions
Start with a gray pen and a drawing compass, and use the latter to create a smooth, even circle, roughly in the center of your page.
Taking your compass, draw another, larger circle outside the first – leave a small gap on either side of this outer circle.
Next, use the compass to draw a third circle, outside the outer one – make the distance between the outer two circles must smaller than between the outer circles and the inner one. Once again, leave a gap in the second outer circle.
Switch to an orange pen, and draw two “tunnels” between the gaps in the outer circles, starting from the innermost circle. This should be a tunnel composed of two lines that bow in the center, and splay back out at the ends.
Extend the lines of the edge of the tunnel, and draw a line up and out, meeting in a curve at the end – you will now have two long “paddle” shapes emerging from the sides of the circle collection, filling the gaps.
Add a curved line to the top of each “paddle” so that you have a curve bisecting the top of the shape.
Change to a gray pen, and fill in the space between the outer circles, so that you have a solid gray ring, and an empty circle inside this.
Grab a gray pencil, and add gentle tonal shading to the circle in the center of the shape.
Change to an orange highlighter pen, and fill in the “paddles” of the propeller, leaving the tips white.
Switch to a red pen, and use this to fill in the very tips of the propellers.
Next, grab a black pen, and draw fierce, sharp spikes emerging from the central circle.
Then, carefully add horizontal hatching between the spikes, so that you have a series of horizontal lines in the gaps and filling the spaces.
Fill in the space between the central circle and the outer ring in the same solid black, but make sure that the spikes and hatched areas are not filled in – leave these empty.
And in just a few short steps, you have created your very own airplane propeller, ready to be put to work in any way you choose – the only limit is your own imagination!
As any aviation fan will know, the propeller is one of the most important aspects of any aircraft. Since the first-ever commercial flight in New Year’s day, 1914, right up to the mighty, groundbreaking technology of Concorde, the propeller has played a critical role in keeping planes where they belong – firmly in the sky!
The propeller as we know it has a long and rich history, beginning with early versions found in Ancient Greece, and developed by scientist Archimedes in 200BC – their first job was to lift water from wells!
In the mid 1400s, Leonardo da Vinci took this design and reimagined its role in a flying machine, drawing the first versions of helicopters.
Propellers became common on ships and boats by the mid-1700s, appeared on hot air balloons in 1783, and the first version on an aircraft appeared in 1873.
In the early 1900s, the first aircraft as we know it was invented, and propellers moved from simple wood to more technologically advanced materials, continuing into the present day.