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US 11,691,713 B2Granted
VTOL having retractable wings
OwnerBehrang Mehrganinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present invention discloses a VTOL aircraft with retractable wings and TEMCS (trailing edge mounted control surface) mounted tilt-able engines. The aircraft has two hover modes; a first hover mode with retracted wings which allows takeoff and landing in tight landing spots, and a second hover mode with extended wings, during these hover modes, the aircraft operates as a multi-rotor aircraft with additional means of vectored forces created by tilt-able engines, with engines directed upward, and a cruise mode with the wings extended and the engines directed in forward direction.
Claims17
A vertical take-off and landing aircraft including:
- a fuselage;
- a flight computer;
- a control system;
- at least one pair of retractable wings being retractable and extendable sideways with axes of rotation of the retractable wings being substantially vertical;
- an absolute angle between said axes or rotation and a yaw axis of the aircraft being limited to 5 degrees;
- the retraction and extension of the retractable wings performed while the aircraft is hovering;
- at least one actuator to extend and retract the retractable wings, with said retractable wings being supported by at least one hinge and said hinge being supported by the fuselage;
- the at least one pair of wings having at least one trailing edge mounted control surface (TEMCS);
- and
- at least one engine being supported by said TEMCS;
- wherein said engine being tilt-able together with said TEMCS thus creating vectored forces;
- said TEMCS having rotational range of motion of at least 80 degrees in order to tilt the said at least one engine fully upward to a substantially vertical position in order to create vertical lift for a hover mode and tilt the said at least one engine forward to a substantially horizontal position in order to create thrust for a cruise mode and having bidirectional range of motion of at least 1 degree in both substantially horizontal and substantially vertical positions in order to create controlled vectored forces in both positions.
9 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.