Roller track assembly for a tiltrotor proprotor door
AssigneeBell Helicopter Textron Inc.
InventorsNick Pravanh, Michael E. Rinehart, Bart Shafer, Clegg Smith, Bruce B. Bacon
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A door track assembly for cooperation with a door roller mechanism, including a housing having a longitudinal channel along a length of the housing, wherein the channel descends at an end of the housing to form a stowage recess for the door roller mechanism, and a first track and a second track that are disposed on the housing along a length of the channel and that descend into the stowage recess and along which the door roller mechanism traverses.
Claims10
A door system for a tiltrotor aircraft, the tiltrotor aircraft including a moveable proprotor housing that rotates relative to a fixed engine nacelle from a forward flight mode to a vertical flight mode, comprising:
- a door roller mechanism including a plurality of rollers arranged on a carriage member;
- and
- a track assembly mounted externally to a top surface of the fixed engine nacelle, the track assembly including:
- a housing having a longitudinal channel along a length of the housing, wherein the channel descends at an end of the housing to form a deep stowage recess for the door roller mechanism, the housing mounted to the fixed engine nacelle such that the deep stowage recess is adjacent to the movable proprotor housing, and
- a first track and a second track that are disposed on the housing along a length of the channel and that descend into the stowage recess and along which the plurality of rollers of the door roller mechanism traverses;
- wherein when the movable proprotor housing is in a forward flight mode, the door roller mechanism is completely stowed in the deep stowage recess.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.