Amphibious vehicles with retractable wheels
AssigneeGibbs Technologies Limited
InventorsSimon Longdill, Hans Weekers, Stephen Briggs
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Amphibious vehicle having road wheels which are retractable to allow planing. Each wheel suspension is protractable through a gap in the planing surface of the hull. To reduce hydrodynamics drag and improve marine handling, covers are provided which cover such gaps when the wheels are retracted. These covers may be hinged parallel to a longitudinal, or to a transverse, axis of the vehicle or may be otherwise connected to the hull.
Claims20
An amphibious vehicle having retractable road wheels each mounted by means of a wheel suspension to a vehicle body, the body having a planing bottom, wherein the bottom has for each suspension an interruption in the bottom through which at least a part of the suspension can move during retraction or protraction of its said road wheel, wherein the interruption is arranged to be substantially covered by a cover, wherein said road wheel is outboard of the cover and wherein the cover is engaged by the part of the wheel suspension during wheel protraction so that the cover at least partially opens on wheel protraction.
An amphibious vehicle comprising:
- a vehicle body which comprises a hull having a planning surface;
- an engine;
- a plurality of road wheels at least one of which can be driven by the engine;
- a suspension arrangement connecting the road wheels to the vehicle body comprising suspension arms to which wheel hub assemblies for the road wheels are attached;
- and
- a wheel retraction system for moving at least some of the road wheels between a lowered ground-engaging location for land mode operation and a raised location for on-water operation;
- wherein:
- apertures are provided in the planing surface through which the suspension arms of at least some of the retractable wheels extend when the road wheels are in their ground-engaging locations;
- covers are provided for at least partially closing the planing surface apertures when the relevant road wheels are retracted;
- and
- wherein each cover is interconnected with an associated suspension arm during at least part of each lowering of a relevant road wheel, the movement of the suspension arm being thereby relayed to the cover to open the cover.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.