This is an old idea that I had a while back but
  it took me awhile to refine the idea.

  There is but one moving part other than the blades
  themselves. There is a 14 inch diameter air cylinder piston
  and cylinder built into a 14 inch diameter spinner. Fourteen
  inch diameter spinners are a good idea for rotary powered
  aircraft as they give more room under the cowl for engine
  and cooling systems. More specifically they give more
  room over the engine for the intake manifold.

  The stroke of the piston is 4 inches because that
  gives a 20 degree change in pitch from climb out to
  top speed. About what one needs.

  The piston is fed by dynamic air pressure entering a small hole
  in the front of the spinner. At 100 MPH that is about 26 pounds
  per square foot. At 200 MPH the dynamic pressure is about 100
  pounds per square foot. A 14 inch diameter piston is about
  1.1 square foot so the force on the piston is 27.8 pounds at
  100 MPH and 106 pounds at 200 MPH. More than enough force
  to increase the blade pitch with about a 7 inch lever arm.

  Paul Lamar

   Paul i think your blade action is on reverse,
    cruise hight pitch and climb fine pitch
   Jean Prudhomme
   Congratulation Jean. you found the secret error. I throw those
    things in from time to time  to find out if anybody actually
looks    at these messages :)   Paul Lamar

  14 inch spinners are good, but 16 inch spinners are better- Like
  the one from a Midget Mustang. The first 8 inches of a prop
  don't do anything other than hold the rest of the prop on the hub.

  Brian Trubee

  Here is the corrected design and 3 blade version are possible.
  This is a 14 inch version but an 18 inch version would work
  much better. The piston area is almost twice as much at 1.77
  square feet. Force at 200 MPH than would be 177 pounds way
  more than enough to change the pitch.

  Paul Lamar
  Interesting, elegant, entirely self-contained.  A few observations:
  - As rotational speed increases, the acceleration ("centrifugal
force") will  tend to force the control arms on the prop blades
farther to the outside,  decreasing the blade pitch.  Not a
showstopper, just something to be designed  around (perhaps with
counterweights)  - Failsafe:  Users would want some means to assure
all blades could be returned  to some satisfactory (and equal!)
 setting if something in the piston mechanism  failed.  (??A strong
spring that pushes all the blades against the "minimum  pitch" stops,
 released by a solenoid catch/melted nichrome wire after a
 triggering signal from the cockpit??  Power supply?)  - Higher
density altitude at same airspeed= less dynamic pressure and lower prop
  pitch, when what we'd want is greater prop pitch (right?).  So,
 the design would  have to be optimized for a particualr density
altitude and conditions outside  this would be somewhat non-optimum.
 Just a compromise, like so much of  engineering.  - As everyone
realizes, the devil is in the implementation--bearings, seals,
 vibration tolerance, flutter control,  etc

  Mark W.

  I figure we would set it up for cruise at 12,000 feet.

  Another trick is to dive the airplane briefly and force the
  pitch to increase then slowly level out. Pitch is proportional
  to speed squared.

  This technique is kind of an urban flying legion but in this case
  it could work.

    I also think the piston and cylinder are best done in carbon
  fiber composites. A small diameter center cylinder can guide
  the large piston.

  The pivot axis of the blade is best done at the 1/4 cord point
  to minimize the torque required to change pitch. If the pivot
  axis is ahead of the 1/4 cord point the pitch will tend
  to flatten automatically.   If the pivot axis is behind the 1/4
cord  point the pitch will tend  to increase counter acting the
acceleration tendency to force the  control arms on the prop blades
farther to the outside, decreasing  the blade pitch.  Small
adjustable trim tabs on the trailing  edge of the blades can be used
for fine tuning.

  Paul Lamar

If the mechanism were designed so that the piston pulled (rather
than pushed) the blade control arms against spring pressure, then
simply breaking the "pull" linkage would allow all blades to spring
back to the "safe" climb-prop pitch setting (though I don't know how
quickly we'd overspeed the engine, PSRU, or prop if this happened).
Setting up for a "pull" configuration might mean putting the prop
blade and control mechanism in front of the piston.

Mark Waldron

If the operating arms were positioned to be parallel to the longitudinal axis
at 50% of the pitch change, and grooves were machined in the piston radially
at say a 30 degree angle; this could be push or pull. It would depend on
whether the actuating arms were ahead or behind the prop rotational plane.
Possibly a gas strut that holds car hoods or lift gates could be adapted as
the spring. An advantage is compact construction and easy to implement an
adjustment bolt to fine tune the pitch change. Just a thought.

Dale Davies