Runway obstacle clearance device and method
OwnerMelvin C. Stanleyinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention is designed to instrumentation and methods for providing runway obstacle clearance for instrument and non-instrument landing of an aircraft. The device provides a simple method of determining if there are any obstacles within the FAA required path of landing of an aircraft. Typically, there are trees and other obstacles which have to be precisely located to determine if such trees and other obstacles are within the required clearance space for permitted landing of an aircraft. This is particularly important when visual verification of the landing of the aircraft is required.
Claims8
A surveying instrument for determining a clear landing path for a runway approach and side clearances comprising:
- a support base having top and bottom planar surfaces the upper surface of which can be positioned parallel to the ground;
- a sighting support member having a bottom surface parallel to the top surface of the support base and a top surface being oriented at a selected non parallel angle in relationship to said planar surfaces of said support base;
- a sighting mechanism mounted on said top surface of the sighting support member, the central axis of said sighting mechanism being parallel to the top planar surface of said sighting support member;
- and the sighting mechanism being rotatable around an axis perpendicular to the top surface of the sighting support member whereby the central axis of said sighting mechanism is maintained at a constant angle relative to the top planar surface of said support base so as to be used to determine a clear landing path and the side clearances, of the runway when rotated.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.