1841 results about "Tailplane" patented technology

A vertical take-off and landing aircraft includes a fixed wing airframe having opposed left and right wings extending from left and right sides, respectively, of a fuselage having opposed leading and trailing extremities and an empennage located behind the trailing extremity. Four fixed, open and horizontal, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) thrust rotors are mounted to the airframe in a quadrotor pattern for providing vertical lift to the aircraft, and a vertical, forward thrust rotor is mounted to the trailing extremity of the fuselage between the trailing extremity of the fuselage and the empennage for providing forward thrust to the aircraft. The four VTOL thrust rotors are coplanar being and operating in a common plane that is parallel relative to, and being level with, top surfaces of the left and right wings in and around a region of each of the four VTOL thrust rotors.

A modular unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) having a fuselage, a nose cone, a left wing piece, a right wing piece, and a tail section. The tail section and nose cone each join to the fuselage through mating bulkhead structures that provide quick connection capability while being readily separated so as to enable the UAV to break apart at these connection points and thereby absorb or dissipate impact upon landing. The UAV is capable of rapid assembly in the field for two-man launch and data retrieval, as well as quick disassembly into these five component parts for transport and storage in a highly compact transport case that can be carried as a backpack.

A vertical take-off and landing aircraft includes a fuselage, a left wing, a right wing, at least one forward thruster, a horizontal stabilizer and a vertical stabilizer. The left and right wings extend from substantially a middle of the fuselage on left and right sides, respectively. The at least one forward thruster is preferably mounted to the fuselage, substantially behind the left and right wings. The horizontal stabilizer extends from a rear of the fuselage. The vertical stabilizer extends from a top of the fuselage at a rear thereof. At least two left lift rotors are retained in the left wing and at least two right lift rotors are retained in the right wing. A second embodiment of the VTOL aircraft includes a fuselage truncated behind the left and right wings with a twin tail empennage.

An aircraft including an airframe having a fuselage which extends longitudinally, and having fixed wings including a main wing, a horizontal tail wing and a vertical tail wing. A propeller-rotor torque transmission has a bevel gear which transmits the rotation of an input shaft simultaneously to a propeller shaft and to a rotor shaft. An engine gearbox supplies the above-mentioned input shaft with rotationalal motive power. The aircraft further includes a propeller collective pitch controller, a rotor collective pitch controller, an engine power controller which controls the output of the above-mentioned engine gearbox for the purpose of changing the rotational speed of the input shaft, and a flight control system having a directional (yaw) control system which controls the flight direction of the aircraft by controlling the positions of the above-mentioned control surfaces.

A manned / unmanned aerial vehicle adapted for vertical takeoff and landing using the same set of engines for takeoff and landing as well as for forward flight. An aerial vehicle which is adapted to takeoff with the wings in a vertical as opposed to horizontal flight attitude which takes off in this vertical attitude and then transitions to a horizontal flight path. An aerial vehicle which controls the attitude of the vehicle during takeoff and landing by alternating the thrust of engines, which are separated in at least two dimensions relative to the horizontal during takeoff, and which may also control regular flight in some aspects by the use of differential thrust of the engines. A tailless airplane which uses a control system that takes inputs for a traditional tailed airplane and translates those inputs to provide control utilizing non-traditional control methods.

A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft according to an aspect of the present invention comprises a fuselage, an empennage having an all-moving horizontal stabilizer located at a tail end of the fuselage, a wing having the fuselage positioned approximately halfway between the distal ends of the wing, wherein the wing is configured to transform between a substantially straight wing configuration and a canted wing configuration using a canted hinge located on each side of the fuselage. The VTOL aircraft may further includes one or more retractable pogo supports, wherein a retractable pogo support is configured to deploy from each of the wing's distal ends.

A single-tilt-rotor VTOL airplanes have a tiltable rotor attached to an elongated power pod containing the collective and cyclical pitch mechanism, and transmission. The power pod is pivotably attached to a base that is slidably mounted on a pair of slotted guide beams attached on top of the roof of the fuselage. The guide beams run longitudinally from the front of the aircraft to past the center of gravity (CG) of the aircraft in order to transport the power pod from the front section to the center section when converting from the horizontal cruising mode to the VTOL mode. In the horizontal cruising mode, the power pod perched horizontally on top of the fuselage front section with sufficient clearance for the rotor to rotate in front of the aircraft. Upon transitioning to the VTOL mode, a telescopic actuator is used to pivot the power pod vertically while a cable-winch system is used to move the entire power pod and base assembly rearwardly to stop at the center of gravity of the aircraft, and vice versa, thus allowing the power pod to travel significantly rearward and forward as required for proper balancing of vertical lift as the power pod pivots 90 degrees during transition from VTOL mode to the cruising mode. A single piston engine, or a single or pair of turbofan engines, mounted slightly to the rear of the CG, have drive shafts that can be clutched and mated onto respective receiving shaft from the transmission within the power pod in order to power the tiltable rotor. The engine is also attached to a propeller for horizontal propulsion, or if turbofan engines are used, jet thrust is generated for horizontal cruise. A small anti-torque rotor or ducted fan toward the tail of the aircraft is mechanically coupled to the engine via a drive shaft to provide the necessary side-way thrust to overcome the main rotor's torque. In the horizontal cruising mode, the tiltable rotor is allowed to windmill slowly at a minimum rotational speed necessary to maintain the integrity of the rotor blades. The same propulsion principle can be applied to VTOL airplanes having more than one tiltable rotor, thereby can potentially increase the speed, range and reliability of current twin-wing-mounted-tilt-rotor aircraft. A pair of high-aspect-ratio wings on both sides of the fuselage provide highly efficient lift during cruising flight with very little induced drag. Conventional horizontal and vertical tail planes are used for directional stability in the cruising mode.

An air-launched aircraft includes deployable wings, elevons, and vertical fins that deploy from a fuselage during flight. The aircraft may include a control system for operating the elevons, a communication system, and batteries for powering the systems. In addition, the aircraft may include a payload module that mates with an interface in the fuselage. The payload module may include any of a variety of payloads, including cameras, sensors, and / or radar emitters. The aircraft may be powered or unpowered, and may be very small, for example, less than on the order of 10 kg (22 pounds). The aircraft may be employed at a low cost for any of a wide variety of functions, such as surveillance, or as a decoy. The deployable surfaces of the aircraft may be configured to deploy in a pre-determined order, allowing the aircraft automatically to enter controlled flight after being launched in a tumbling mode.

The invention relates to a tilt rotor aircraft adopting parallel coaxial dual rotors, which comprises a fuselage, wings, an empennage, a pitch control scull system, a landing gear, a power and fuel system, a transmission system, a rotor system, a rotor nacelle and a tilt system, wherein the wings are arranged at the center section of the fuselage; the empennage and the pitch control scull system are arranged at the tail of the fuselage; the landing gear is positioned at the belly of the fuselage; the power and fuel system is arranged inside the center section of the fuselage and is connected with the rotor system and the pitch control scull system through the wings and the transmission system in the fuselage; the rotor system is arranged on the rotor nacelle at the tip of the wings; partial wing which is fixedly connected with the rotor nacelle and simultaneously can tilt is arranged at the inner side of the rotor nacelle; and the tilt system is arranged in the wings and is connected with the rotor nacelle and the partial wing which can tilt. The tilt rotor aircraft is mainly characterized by adopting the pitch control scull system, the parallel coaxial dual rotors and the partialwing which can tilt to realize flight status transformation and conventional taxiing and landing, thereby improving the forward speed and the propulsive efficiency.

A multi-mode unmanned aerial vehicle includes an elongated fuselage, a right and left fixed wing extending from a respective right and left side of the elongated fuselage, a right and left tilt wing attached at a first side to a free end of the respective right and left fixed wing, a right and left duct attached to a second side of the respective right and left tilt wing, a right and left winglet attached to the respective right and left duct opposite to the right and left tilt wing, a tilt tail located within a curved guide slot at a rear end of the elongated fuselage, a rear duct attached to the tilt tail, a tilting mechanism, and an integrated autonomous flight control system.

The invention relates to an unmanned aerial vehicle which can vertically take off and land and hover in the air and has higher flight speed and larger flying range. The unmanned aerial vehicle does not need running take-off, thereby reducing the requirement on a taking off and landing field and greatly expanding the application range, and the unmanned aerial vehicle has higher speed and further flaying range than a manned helicopter. The unmanned aerial vehicle comprises a body (1), wings (8), a horizontal empennage (2), a vertical empennage (5), a nose power cabin (15) arranged on the front part of the body (1), a propeller power system (12) arranged on the front part of the nose power cabin (15) and a tilting mechanism (16) arranged on the middle upper part of the body, wherein the nosepower cabin (15) is connected with the body in a titling mode through the tilting mechanism (16) so as to ensure that the axial directions of the propellers (121) and (122) of the propeller power system (12) can be correspondingly titled.

The composite rotating fixed-wing aircraft consists of the coaxial counter-paddle, reverse gear, engine output shaft, engine with a starter-generator, wings, tail blades, landing device, culvert, steering gear, fairing, fuselage, motor, motor drive shaft, wing control unit of small angle of attack, aileron rudder surface, and tailplane rudder surface. Co-axial counter-blade is located in the upper part of the aircraft, which connects with the engine output shaft; the reverse gear is installed between the co-axial counter-propellers; the motor connects with motor drive shaft powered by the starter-generator of the engine; the wings are located on both sides of aircraft and connect with the fuselage; the tail blades are located at the aircraft tail, which are installed behinde motor drive shaft; the landing device is located under the lower part of the fuselage and fixed with it; the culvert connects with the landing device; the fairing is installed in the culvert and connects with the steering gear; the wing control unit of small angle of attack is installed on the wing. The aircraft design method has six steps with strict scientific idea; this invention has a wide range of practical value and application prospect.

A missile, either a powered missile or an unpowered projectile, includes a freely-rolling tail assembly having an odd number of fins. Having an odd number of fins may reduce oscillations caused by the rotation of the freely-rotating tail. This may make a more stable platform for a seeker, such as an uncooled focal point array or other imaging infrared (IIR) or millimeter wave radio frequency (MMW) seeker, in the body of the missile. Also, minimizing oscillation by using an odd number of fins may facilitate control of the missile.

The invention relates to a double-wing type miniature bionic ornithopter, which comprises a driving mechanism, a double-flapping-wing system, a spoiler mechanism and a principal arm, wherein the driving mechanism is just connected to the front end of the main arm, the double-flapping-wing system is positioned above the principal arm, and the spoiler mechanism is connected to the rear end of the principal arm. The driving mechanism comprises a diamond rack, a miniature direct current motor, a gear reducing mechanism and two crank-link mechanisms, the double-flapping-wing system comprises two symmetrical flapping wing racks, four flapping wing installation rods, an upper layer of flapping wing and a lower layer of flapping wing, and the spoiler mechanism comprises an electromagnetic rubber, a spoiler and a swing wing. The miniature direct current motor pulls two flapping wing racks to move up and down through the gear reducing mechanism and the crank-link mechanisms, so that the bionic flapping wings can be realized. The electromagnetic rubber in the spoiler mechanism can control the swing wing to swing from side to side by changing the current direction, so that the fly direction of the ornithopter can be controlled.

The “Tailed Flying Wing Aircraft” idea represents new aerodynamic concepts for large high subsonic aircraft. Large high subsonic aircraft based on these new aerodynamic concepts are having a significantly higher lift capacity and longer range, as well as a significantly lower fuel consumption of at least two times less than the aircraft based on classical fuselage concept with the same external dimensions. In addition, the aircraft based on the new concepts are having a significantly better longitudinal stability and maneuverability, as well as aerodynamic efficiency at high subsonic speed than aircraft based on “Tailless Flying Wing” concepts. The aircraft based on the “Tailed Flying Wing Aircraft” idea satisfy all safety requirements for civil aircraft. They also have simple shapes for manufacturing, hence this idea provides for new realistic advanced aerodynamic concepts for the next generations of large subsonic aircraft.

The invention described here offers a more effective method of ornithopter flight control. To accomplish this, the ornithopter has dual microprocessor-controlled drive systems for flapping the wings independently of each other. Various wing movements can cause the ornithopter to turn, roll, or pitch up or down. Weight and complexity are reduced by eliminating the need for servo-controlled tail surfaces.

A vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, which includes pivotal wing and engine assemblies on a fuselage with tail assemblies extending from each of the wing assemblies and the engines being operable in turbo prop or pure jet mode, wherein the aircraft is configured such that it can be landed or taken off vertically or in a horizontal mode along a runway.

The invention provides a rotor blade airplane with a variable flight mode, comprising an airplane body, a plurality of canards, a rotor blade, an empennage and a power system. The rotor blade airplane is characterized in that the canards are symmetrically arranged at two sides of the head of the airplane body; the empennage comprises a perpendicular empennage and a horizontal empennage, the perpendicular empennage is arranged at the back of the airplane body, and the horizontal empennage is arranged at the top end of the perpendicular empennage to form into the 'T'-shaped empennage; the canards, the rotor blade and the horizontal empennage are distributed with one another in the manner of a step from low to high along with the Z direction of the airplane; and a plurality of high lift devices are arranged on the canards and the horizontal empennage, and the lift force requirement for the controllable flight of the airplane can be met by a lift force generated on the canards and the horizontal empennage during transition flight. The rotor blade airplane can prevent the empennage from being directly impacted by the downwash of the rotor blade under a rotor blade flight mode, the distraction to a horizontal tail caused by the downwash of the rotor blade can be reduced, and the airplane can be controlled under the rotor blade flight mode during the transition flight.

The present invention is a 2 passenger aircraft capable of vertical and conventional takeoffs and landings, called a jyrodyne. The jyrodyne comprises a central fuselage with biplane-type wings arranged in a negative stagger arrangement, a horizontal ducted fan inlet shroud located at the center of gravity in the top biplane wing, a rotor mounted in the shroud, outrigger wing support landing gear, a forward mounted canard wing and passenger compartment, a multiple vane-type air deflector system for control and stability in VTOL mode, a separate tractor propulsion system for forward flight, and a full-span T-tail. Wingtip extensions on the two main wings extend aft to attach to the T-tail. The powerplants consist of two four cylinder two-stroke reciprocating internal combustion engines. Power from the engines is distributed between the ducted fan and tractor propeller through the use of a drivetrain incorporating two pneumatic clutches, controlled by an automotive style footpedal to the left of the rudder pedals. When depressed, power is transmitted to the ducted fan for vertical lift. When released, power is transmitted to the tractor propeller for forward flight. The aircraft can also takeoff and land in the conventional manner with a much larger payload, and is easily converted to amphibious usage. Landing gear is a bicycle arrangement with outriggers. The aircraft combines twin engines, heavy-duty landing gear, controlled-collapse crashworthy seats with a low stall speed and high resistance to stalls to eliminate any region of the flight regime where an engine or drivetrain failure could cause an uncontrollable crash.

The present invention is an optical ice detection probe capable of detecting the presence, thickness and continued buildup of ice. The invention works by attaching the probe to the external surface of an airplane such as the wing, fuselage or empannage. The probe has a recessed surface, which is mounted to face directly into the airflow. One or more beams are passed over and parallel to the recessed surface. These beams can be of any useful wavelength, however for best results visible, infrared or ultraviolet beams should be used. Ice on the recessed surface interrupts the beams thereby indicating the presence of ice. If two or more beams are used, then each beam emitter is paired with a beam detector and the corresponding beam detector only detects the beam from that emitter. This can be accomplished by numerous methods. For example, powering each beam emitter alternately and sampling the output of the corresponding detector, electronically modulating the beam to a specific frequency with corresponding detectors designed to respond to the specific frequency or using an optical filter that passes only specific wavelengths.

A toy radio-controlled helicopter includes: a main rotor, attached on the top of a fuselage and driven by a motor incorporated in the fuselage; a tail rotor that is driven by the motor and is attached to a tail unit provided at the end of a horizontally elongated boom that is extended from the rear of the fuselage; right and left movable wings, attached to the right and left sides of the fuselage below the main rotor, that can be rotated by respective actuators incorporated in the fuselage; and a receiver incorporated in the fuselage to control the operations of the motor and the actuators.

A system and method for assembling and operating a solar powered aircraft, composed of one or more modular constituent wing panels. Each wing panel includes at least one hinge interface that is configured to rotationally interface with a complementary hinge interface on another wing panel. When a first and second wing panel are coupled together via the rotational interface, they can rotate with respect to each other within a predetermined angular range. The aircraft further comprises a control system that is configured to acquire aircraft operating information and atmospheric information and use the same alter the angle between the wing panels, even if there are multiple wing panels. One or more of the wing panels can include photovoltaic cells and / or solar thermal cells to convert solar radiation energy or solar heat energy into electricity, that can be used to power electric motors. Further, the control system is configured to alter an angle between a wing panel and the horizon, or the angle between wing panels, to maximize solar radiation energy and solar thermal energy collection. A tail assembly for the aircraft includes a rotational pivot that allows the flight control surfaces to rotate to different orientations to avoid or reduce flutter loads and to increase solar radiation energy and / or solar thermal energy collection from photovoltaic cells and / or solar thermal cells the can be located on the tail structure associated with the flight control surfaces.

The invention relates to a convertible aircraft operating method. According to the invention, the aircraft comprises: a fuselage, standard fixed wings which are equipped with ailerons, a tail unit with flight-control surfaces, engines, a rotor with blades, a transmission which is placed between the engines and the rotor and which is equipped with rotor clutch and braking means, a landing gear, means for transition from helicopter mode to gyroplane mode and vice versa, and means for direct or reverse transition from gyroplane / helicopter mode to aeroplane mode. The lift for a range of low speeds is produced by means of the rotor, while the lift for a range of high speeds is produced by means of the wings. In addition, the lift for a range of intermediate speeds can be produced using the wings and the rotor in gyroplane mode simultaneously, and take-off and landing can be performed in gyroplane mode or in helicopter mode with the engines coupled to the rotor. The aircraft comprises a hybrid helicopter / gyroplane / aeroplane aircraft and, as such, can perform the direct or reverse transition to aeroplane mode from both helicopter mode and gyroplane mode.

The invention provides a folding small-sized unmanned aerial vehicle, which comprises a wing-fuselage blended body, a pair of airfoils, an empennage and a tail boom, wherein the airfoils are respectively arranged on both sides of the wing-fuselage blended body; a connection position of each airfoil and the wing-fuselage blended body is provided with a first folding mechanism; the first folding mechanisms are used for folding the airfoils downwards relative to the wing-fuselage blended body and locking the unfolded airfoils in an unfolded state; one end of the tail boom is connected with the empennage, while the other end is connected with the wing-fuselage blended body through a second folding mechanism; and the second folding mechanism is used for folding the tail boom downwards relative to the wing-fuselage blended body and locking the unfolded tail boom in an unfolded state. After being folded, an airframe structure of the small-sized unmanned aerial vehicle can be accommodated in a cuboid packing chest; and the folding small-sized unmanned aerial vehicle can unfold to the flight condition automatically by utilizing an air-powered actuating device to execute flight tasks of air delivery and the like, and simultaneously, the small-sized unmanned aerial vehicle is short in assembly and disassembly time and convenient in transportation.

The invention relates to a multi-freedom degree bird-like flapping wing air vehicle. The multi-freedom degree bird-like flapping wing air vehicle comprises a driving mechanism, two twisting mechanisms, an empennage mechanism, two flexible joint structures and a machine frame. The multi-freedom degree bird-like flapping wing air vehicle is simple and compact in structure, and fully-symmetrical flapping wing movement can be realized. Two rubber flexible grooved mechanisms are arranged, so that the flapping wing air vehicle can fly like a bird; flapping wings are curved and folded, so that when the flapping wings flap upwards, a stressed area is reduced, and the resistance is reduced; when the flapping wings flap downwards, the wing extending area is the largest; besides, outer wings can also be passively bent in a flight direction by air resistance, so that great lifting force and great thrust are generated; steering engines are adopted to control inner wing rods so as to change the elevation angle of the flapping wings, the multi-freedom degree bird-like flapping wing air vehicle conforms to the effect that upward flapping resistance is less than downward flapping lifting force in aerodynamics, and the aerodynamic efficiency is improved; the two steering engines are utilized to control the deflection of the empennage, so that operating and controlling of the flight attitude of the flapping wing air vehicle are facilitated. The multi-freedom degree bird-like flapping wing air vehicle disclosed by the invention can be used in the fields of models, aerial photography monitoring, information collecting, disaster searching and rescuing, airport bird expelling and the like.

A low drag ship hull generally includes a side air cavity initiated by wetted bow section, bottom air cavity initiated by wetted bottom nosepiece, wetted stem section that closes a lower portion of the side cavity, wetted bottom tailpiece that closes the bottom cavity, stabilizing fin, and propulsor. The bottom of a catamaran hull cross structure includes bow impact alleviator. Optional flaps in the stabilizing fins, together with optional all-movable canard fins are used for control. Different wetted bow sections and retractable means are used for starting side cavities. A low drag hull may utilize multiple air cavities. A new low drag hull includes a new upper bottom air cavity that is initiated by an upper bottom wetted nosepiece, and closed by an upper bottom tailpiece. Alternative designs include a shortened forward hull spaced ahead of a shortened aft hull, and a hydrofoil-supported trimaran with low drag hulls.

The modular aircraft system includes a single fuselage having a permanently installed empennage and plural sets of wing modules and engine modules, with each wing and engine module optimized for different flight conditions and missions. The fuselage and each of the modules are configured for rapid removal and installation of the modules to minimize downtime for the aircraft. Short wings having relatively low aspect ratio are provided for relatively high speed flight when great endurance and / or weight carrying capacity are not of great concern. Long wings having high aspect ratio are provided for longer range and endurance flights where speed is not absolutely vital. A medium span wing module is also provided. Turboprop, single turbojet, and dual turbojet engine modules are provided for installation depending upon mission requirements for any given flight. The aircraft is primarily adapted for use as an autonomously operated or remotely operated unmanned aerial vehicle.