Hartzell Expands the Navigator Propeller STC for the Bonanza A Thirty-Six, G Thirty-Six, and A Thirty-Six T C

Hartzell Propeller has amended its Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) for the Navigator propeller to add three more Beechcraft Bonanza models: the A36, the G36, and the turbocharged A36TC. For owners of those airplanes, that means a modern, all-metal propeller upgrade is now a documented, bolt-on option instead of a paperwork ordeal. The news comes out of Piqua, Ohio, and was reported by AVweb.

What the Hartzell Navigator Propeller Is

The Navigator is part of a Hartzell propeller family built specifically for the piston singles that make up much of the general aviation fleet. It sits a notch below the company’s top-shelf carbon-fiber blades - think of it as the everyday-workhorse line.

It’s an all-metal, blended-airfoil propeller: aluminum blades that are swept and shaped with modern aerodynamics rather than the flat paddle profiles these airframes rolled off the line with decades ago. The value proposition is a modern propeller with modern performance at a mid-tier price point - the middle ground where a lot of Bonanza owners have been standing.

What a New Propeller Actually Buys You

A new propeller on an airplane that already flies fine delivers three real benefits, though the marketing and the reality sometimes drift apart.

Weight. A blended-airfoil aluminum propeller can shave pounds off the nose compared to some older assemblies. That matters on a Bonanza, particularly the long-fuselage 36-series, which lives and dies by its center of gravity. Pulling weight off the spinner nudges loading in a direction that many owners will welcome given the aft-CG conversation these airplanes are known for.

Performance. Blended airfoils and modern blade design can yield better climb, a little more speed, or a tuned combination of both. Hartzell markets the Navigator on smoothness and climb performance. How much you feel depends on what’s bolted to your airplane today.

The honest caveat: if you’re flying behind a tired, high-time two-blade with a couple of overhauls on it, a new propeller can feel like a different airplane. If you already run a recent, healthy three-blade, the difference will be smaller. New is not always transformative - sometimes new is just new, current, and under warranty.

Maintenance and overhaul economics. This one gets underrated. Buying into a propeller line means buying into its overhaul intervals, parts availability, and support network. A propeller comes back to the shop on a calendar and an hour count, whichever comes first, and the cost of feeding it over 20 years can matter as much as the day-one sticker price.

Why an “Amended” STC Matters More Than a New One

The most important word in this headline is amended - and most people skate right past it.

Hartzell didn’t announce a brand-new STC. It amended an existing one to add airplanes to the approved model list. A Supplemental Type Certificate is how a party other than the original manufacturer gets a modification legally approved for your aircraft: they engineer the change, test it, prove to the FAA that it’s safe and effective, and the FAA issues a certificate authorizing installation on specific airplanes.

That last phrase is everything. An STC is not a blanket permission slip - it applies to a defined list of makes, models, and often serial-number ranges. If your exact airplane is on the approved list, installation is a known, blessed procedure: your mechanic follows the instructions, signs it off, makes the logbook entry, and updates your equipment list and weight and balance. Clean and legal.

If your airplane is not on that list, you’re in a harder, slower, more expensive world of field approvals or one-off engineering - and many owners simply never bother. By amending the Navigator STC to cover the A36, G36, and A36TC, Hartzell moved three more models from the too-hard column into the bolt-it-on column.

Who This Affects - A Look at the Three Bonanza Models

This matters if you own one of these three Bonanzas and have been eyeing a propeller change - maybe you’re facing an overhaul decision, rebuilding the nose after a prop strike, or simply want the airplane lighter and smoother. The three models aren’t identical, and the reasons to upgrade differ.

The A36 is the classic straight-tail, long-body Bonanza - club-door, six seats, the airplane a huge slice of the piston-single traveling public has flown for decades. There are a lot of them, they get flown hard on real trips, and their owners care about every knot and every pound. This is the heart of the Bonanza market, not a niche target.

The G36 is the modern, glass-panel continuation of that same airplane, built in more recent years with a Garmin flight deck. These are newer airframes flown by owners inclined to keep the airplane current. A current-production propeller line fits that mindset - they already chose new glass.

The A36TC is the turbocharged variant. Turbo up front changes the whole equation: you fly higher, manage more heat and complexity, and the propeller’s job up in the flight levels is a genuinely different engineering problem than it is down low. Naming the turbocharged airplane specifically on the amended STC signals that Hartzell did the work to cover that case rather than leaving turbo owners out.

Why This Matters for Pilots: Investment in the Legacy Fleet

Stepping off the news for a moment: this is healthy for a reason that has nothing to do with any single airplane. It’s investment in the piston fleet owners already fly.

The Bonanza line goes back generations, and what keeps an aging fleet flying well is exactly this kind of work - a manufacturer deciding a decades-old airframe is worth the engineering hours and certification cost to offer it a modern, supported component. That’s a company betting people will still be flying Bonanzas 20 years from now.

Every time a propeller shop, avionics maker, engine outfit, or parts manufacturer expands an STC to cover more of the legacy fleet, the airplanes in our hangars get a little more supportable and a little more valuable. It’s quiet news - an amended certificate, not a new airplane under trade-show lights - but it’s the actual machinery of keeping general aviation alive.

A Practical Checklist Before You Upgrade

There is no airworthiness directive here, no compliance deadline, and no safety-of-flight bulletin. Nothing about this is urgent. It’s simply a new legal option. If it’s on your radar, work through these steps:

Go to the source. Pull up Hartzell’s current Navigator approvals for the Bonanza and confirm your exact model - and critically, your serial number - falls inside the amended approval. Model name alone isn’t the whole story; serial ranges and engine or prior-modification combinations matter.
Talk to a Bonanza-specific shop. Not just any propeller shop - one that has done this work on this airframe. Ask three questions: What does the installed price really come to, all in? What overhaul intervals and long-term maintenance costs am I signing up for? And given what’s on my nose right now, what performance change will I honestly notice?
Trust the shop that will talk you out of the sale. A good shop tells you the truth even when the truth is “your current prop is fine, save your money.”
Do the weight and balance homework first - before you commit, not after. Get the real installed weight of the new propeller and run it against your airplane’s current numbers. On a 36-series Bonanza, a change at the nose ripples straight through your loading, and you want that on paper before the airplane is apart.

Key Takeaways

Hartzell amended its Navigator propeller STC to add the Beechcraft Bonanza A36, G36, and A36TC, reported by AVweb out of Piqua, Ohio.
The word “amended” is the story: it moves three more models onto the FAA-approved list, turning installation into a routine, documented, logbook-entry job.
The Navigator is an all-metal, blended-airfoil propeller in Hartzell’s mid-tier line, marketed on smoothness, climb, and modern blade design.
Real benefits include weight off the nose (helpful for the CG-sensitive 36-series), potential performance gains, and access to a supported overhaul network.
There’s no AD or deadline - verify your serial number against the STC, get a Bonanza-savvy shop’s honest read, and run the weight and balance before committing.