Here is a photo from today’s New York Times showing a scene from the deck of the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. Much of the picture is occupied by what looks to be a propellor or screw. And, an odd looking one at that (at least to my eyes).
I honestly don’t know what it’s part of. A plane? Helicopter? Screw from a small craft currently hoisted onto the deck?
I am very curious to know.
Thanks!
It looks like the new E-2D and the old E-2C Hawkeye Airborne Early Warning aircraft have new eight-bladed propellers installed: File:E-2C Landing.jpg - Wikipedia
Jeez, two minutes! Did you expect me to wait around all that time? 
Many thanks!
My guess is the 8-bladed propeller of an E-2 Hawkeye.
Rats, missed it by *that *much! 
It’s the propeller for the AWACS plane behind the people. You can make out the radar dome to the left above their heads.
fake edit: I am so beaten but dammit, I looked up the type of plane, typed all this out, there’s no way I’m not posting it!
Sorry. I shouldn’t have taken the extra time to run calculations checking the other in the focused-sun-weapon thread and stopped to send messages in a round of Diplomacy. I’ll try to do better next time.
It’s also used for killing vampires.
It’s the vampire chopper upper. See the recent movie documentary if you are still confused.
What’s also cool is having a gal plane captain in the squadron - running a bag of tie-down chains all over the flight deck is no fun.
(Said with the experience of 2 WestPac cruises on ‘Ranger’ CVA-61 as a flight deck troubleshooter ‘greenshirt’)
My first extra question was:* but where’s the rest of the wing?* I know that some planes have foldable wings, but I had thought that they usually folded up, so that they’d still be visible at an angle like this.
Turns out that they do indeed fold, but with a weird diagonal hinge, so that they end up pointing straight back but with the chord line oriented vertically.
OK, I’ll ask the follow-up. Why do they have eight-bladed propellers on these AWACS planes? I don’t think I’ve seen them on any other aircraft.
Eight-bladed propellers are used on the Airbus A400 (a military transport aircraft). They have also been tested on the C-130 and a few other aircraft.
Essentially, a propeller with more blades can handle more power, while being more aerodynamic and efficient than a propeller with fewer blades.
