332 results about "Wingspan" patented technology

A subsonic aircraft having backswept lifting wings is equipped with individually rotatable winglets at the wing tips thereof, in order to reduce drag during cruise flight, to minimize the dangers posed by wing tip vortices to following aircraft during take-off and landing, and to minimize the total wingspan during ground operations, with respective different positions of the winglets. A streamline-shaped rotation body made up of at least two individually rotatably supported rotation segments is mounted on the wing tip of each lifting wing. A respective winglet is mounted on each respective rotation segment. Each rotation segment with its associated winglet is individually rotatable about a rotation axis of the rotation body extending substantially parallel to the aircraft lengthwise axis. Thereby, each winglet is individually pivotable to any selected pivot angle relative to a horizontal plane extending through the rotation axis. Each winglet and its associated rotation segment is rotatable through an angular range between maximum end limits of at least +90° (vertically upward) and at least -90° (vertically downward) relative to the horizontal plane.

An airfoil for a compressor is described. The airfoil has a root, an airfoil tip, a leading edge, a trailing edge, airfoil pressure and suction sides extending between the leading edge and the trailing edge. The airfoil has an inner span region and an outer span region and the trailing edge has a dihedral profile such that the trailing edge dihedral angle decreases in at least a portion of the inner span region and the outer span region.

A wing-fuselage section of an aircraft, which wing-fuselage section comprises a wing root at which the wing of the aircraft is connected to the fuselage, a fuselage region with fuselage frame elements that extent across the longitudinal direction of the aircraft, and a wing region with spars that extend in the direction of the wingspan. According to the invention, the spars of the wing region and the fuselage frame elements of the fuselage region form part of an integral assembly that extends at least over a middle part of the wing and the fuselage region, including the wing roots.

An aircraft capable of thrust-borne flight can be automatically retrieved, serviced, and launched using equipment suitable for a small vessel. For retrieval, the aircraft hovers over a base apparatus having one or more rails which bound a space into which the aircraft can safely descend. When the aircraft's measured position and velocity are appropriate, the aircraft descends promptly such that a spanwise component on the aircraft engages the rails. The teeth restrain the aircraft in position and orientation, while the rails bring the aircraft to rest. Articulation of the rails is used to park the aircraft in a servicing station. Connections for refueling, recharging, and/or functional checks are made in preparation for launch. Launch is effected by removing connections and restraints and articulating the rails to put the aircraft in an appropriate position and orientation. The aircraft uses its own thrust to climb out of the apparatus into free flight.

An extremely large aircraft which is suitable for overseas cargo transport and which includes a fuselage defining a central storage cavity, a wing assembly defining a pair of wing storage cavities, an altitude control system, and a plurality of independently steerable landing gear units. The central storage cavity has a length, height and width of at least 100 feet, at least 16 feet and at least 24 feet, respectively. The wing assembly has a wingspan of at least 300 feet and is configured with a moderate aspect ratio to permit both ground-effect and high altitude operation. The altitude control system controls the aircraft in ground effect such that the aircraft is maintained at about a predetermined altitude. The landing gear units are coupled to the fuselage and are arranged in at least two discrete columns and at least ten discrete rows. The central storage cavity and the wing storage cavities are configured to receive cargo including intermodal re-usable cargo containers.

The craft is for hovering flight, vertical takeoff and landing, and horizontal forward flight. It has a tail-sitting fuselage and a ducted fan mounted to the fuselage aft to provide propulsion in both (a) hovering and vertical flight and (b) horizontal forward flight. At each side is a floating wing, supported from the fuselage for passive rotation (or an actuator-controlled optimized emulation of such rotation) about a spanwise axis, to give lift in forward flight. The fuselage attitude varies between vertical in hovering and vertical flight, and generally horizontal in forward flight. Preferably the fuselage is not articulated; there is just one fan, the sole source of propulsion, rotating about only an axis parallel to the fuselage; and thrust-vectoring control vanes operate aft of the fan. Preferably at each side a small, nonrotating wing segment is fixed to the fuselage, and the floating wing defines-along its trailing portions-a corner notch or slot near the fuselage; forward portions of the fixed wing segment are within this notch. Preferably the spanwise axis is along a surface of the floating wing, and a long hinge supports that wing from the fixed wing segment, within the notch. During vertical and transitional flight characteristically the leading edge of the floating wing is down relative to the fuselage axis.

Embodiments of integral composite panels and joints for composite structures are described In one implementation, an integrated panel spanning substantially the entire wingspan of an aircraft, includes at least a center portion and a pair of outwardly projecting wing portions. The portions may include a skin formed from successive layers or plies of composite material which overlap and offset at the joint between respective sections creating a pad-up area to carry loads between the portions. In a particular implementation, the skin is laid over one or more structural stringers which are transitioned into the joints between sections such as by tapering of the thickness and/or stiffness of the stringer.

The invention discloses an electromagnetically-driven flapping wing type micro aircraft based on flexible hinges, which comprises chest cavities, cylindrical permanent magnets, a spiral coil, wings, a tergum and flexurally-deformed flexible hinges, wherein the two flexible hinges are passively twisted; the pair of wings is symmetrically mounted on both ends of the tergum; the flexible hinges are sandwiched between the two chest cavities to form a sandwich structure, the tergum is fixed on the flexible hinge, and both ends of the tergum are symmetrically positioned in free regions of the chest cavities; the spiral coil is fixedly mounted in the central position of the chest cavities; and the permanent magnet is fixed in the center of the tergum. Though the machining based on an MEMS (Micro Electronic Mechanical System) process, the invention realizes the flapping wing type micro aircraft of which the wingspan is smaller than 3cm, and driving force can be obtained through the interaction of the energized spiral coil and a magnetic field between the permanent magnets. Besides, the invention has the advantages of very simple structure, small input voltage and large output force, is convenient and flexible to control, and is easy to realize portable operation.

The invention provides an airplane with a combined-wing layout of a flying wing and forward-swept wings. The airplane is characterized in that thin-wing type vertical columns A and B are additionally arranged at the 70% wingspan positions of the outer sides of two side wings of a flying-wing airplane with backward-swept wings, a thin-wing type vertical column C is additionally arranged at the tail part of the flying-wing airplane, and horizontal forward-swept wings are additionally arranged at the top ends of the three thin-wing type vertical columns A, B and C so as to form the combined-wing layout of the flying wing and the forward-swept wings; elevators are arranged on the horizontal forward-swept wings and a rudder is arranged on the vertical column C; a duct type air inlet channel is adopted on the upper wing surface of the flying wing, and cracking type drag rudders are distributed at the thin-wing type vertical columns A and B. The airplane provided by the invention has the advantages that under the condition that the structure strength is effectively guaranteed, the effective aspect ratio of the wings is increased, the induced drag is reduced, the lift-drag characteristics of the airplane are improved, the stealth performance of the airplane is improved, direct-force control of the airplane in the vertical direction is realized and the detecting accuracy under the maneuvering condition is improved.

The invention relates to a truck carriage which is characterized in that: the truck carriage is a wingspan carriage (2), wherein one or more of a left door (14), a right door (15) and a back door (20) of the wingspan carriage (2) is/are opened in a wingspan manner under the action of a gas spring. In the invention, as the wingspan carriage is adopted, the left, right and back doors of the carriage can be opened completely, and goods in the carriage almost can be completely shown to people; and moreover, the left and right doors can protect people from sunlight and rain after being opened, so that the goods can be loaded/unloaded conveniently and quickly and people can move conveniently. Moreover, storage boxes of various specifications are additionally arranged on the side skirt below a carriage floor, thus the storage space is expanded without changing the carriage capacity. The effect is better due to the adoption of an inner sealing mode; and the truck carriage can prevent rain and dust more effectively and is suitable for the transportation of more goods with high performance requirements.

An unmanned aerial vehicle with deployable components (UAVDC) is disclosed. The UAVDC may comprise a fuselage, at least one wing, and at least one control surface. In some embodiments, the UAVDC may further comprise a propulsion means and/or a modular payload. The UAVDC may be configured in a plurality of arrangements. For example, in a compact arrangement, the UAVDC may comprise the at least one wing stowed against the fuselage and the at least one control surface stowed against the fuselage. In a deployed arrangement, the UAVDC may comprise the at least one wing deployed from the fuselage and the least one control surface deployed from the fuselage. In an expanded arrangement, the UAVDC may comprise the at least one wing telescoped to increase a wingspan of the deployed arrangement. The UAVDC may also comprise a foldable propeller blade with a locking mechanism. Foldable propeller blades may have a stowed configuration and a deployed configuration, and the foldable propeller blades may pivot about a hinge to move between configurations. A foldable propeller blade in a deployed configuration may experience forward folding motion due to forces acting upon it. A locking mechanism—for example, a ratchet and pawl—may lock a foldable propeller blade into a configuration. In a locked arrangement, a UAVDC may comprise at least one foldable propeller that locks into place to prevent forward folding tendency.

Having evolved over thousands and millions of years, birds are endowed with very excellent flying ability and their wings have terrific vehicle agility. A routine aircraft is mostly a fixed or rotor craft and cannot produce enough lift force at low Reynolds number to maintain balance. When the size is reduced to a certain level, a series of problems will appear. However, birds are outstanding flyers at low Reynolds number. Thus, an ornithopter imitating birds will certainly be the inevitable choice of future miniature air vehicles. Flight mode of bats is different from that of general birds. When bats flap their wings up and down, wingspan area is adjusted by folding and spreading wings to provide the lift force during flight. Therefore, on one hand, the single driving link flapping-wing flying robot space mechanism imitates up-down flapping of bats; and on the other hand, shrinking of bat wings is imitated. In addition, in comparison with other bat-imitating flying robots, the flapping-wing aircraft which imitates bat flight by the use of a single driving link has characteristics of light weight, strong vehicle agility and the like.

A pivoting wing system, capable of vertical take-off and landing, having a hub connected to one or more wings provided on a spanwise axis. The wings are further provided with one or more thrust producing devices mounted to the top and bottom of the wings. The thrust producing devices are configured pivot the wings about the spanwise axis. The wings generate lift for forward flight situations, and the configuration allows for controlled vertical and horizontal flight. The wings may also be configured as rotary elements and enable the system to take flight like a helicopter.

The invention discloses a folding mechanism for changing wingspan of wings. The folding mechanism is a rigid foldable structure which is used for changing the single degree of freedom and the large folding-expanding ratio of the wingspan of the wings based on a Sarrus mechanism. The single degree of freedom guarantees that the entire wings only need a driving motor, complexity caused by coordination and cooperation of a plurality of motors is avoided, besides, the self weight of the folded wings is greatly reduced, and the effective load of an aircraft is increased; the large folding-expanding ratio guarantees that the respects including the speed, the mobility, the loading capacity, the range and the like of the aircraft can be adjusted according to task requirements. Through the adoption of the mechanism, the wingspan of the wings is changed, the diversified functions of the aircraft can be realized, the performance indexes of the aircraft can be regulated, and enormous convenience is brought for the storage and the transportation of the aircraft; the entire mechanism only has one degree of freedom, so that the motion control is simple; the folding mechanism has the advantages of being simple to produce and process, convenient in motion control, high in reliability, high in precision and the like, and has important significance and broad application prospects in the field of variable geometry aircrafts.

The present invention discloses an aircraft using a distributed electric ducted fan flap lift-rising system. The aircraft symmetrically arranges two distributed electric ducted fan flap lift-rising systems on both sides of the front middle part of the fuselage; the distributed electric ducted fan wing flap lift system has relatively large wingspan and aspect ratio; the number of electric ducted fans arranged on the leading edge is relatively large; the rear middle part of the fuselage is provided with a lift fan; rear wings are symmetrically disposed both sides of the rear middle part of the fuselage; the center of gravity of the aircraft is located in the middle of the fuselage; and the aircraft has a tandem wing layout. The aircraft of the present invention has the advantages of small friction, and no pollution and low noise of the electric ducted fan.