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US 2014/0151496 A1Published application
Modular Flying Vehicle
OwnerDonald Orval Shawinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention is a modular vehicle having an air vehicle that can be coupled to cargo containers, land vehicles, sea vehicles, medical transport modules, etc. In one embodiment the air vehicle has a plurality of propellers positioned around a main airframe, which can provide vertical thrust and/or horizontal thrust. One or more of the propellers may be configured to tilt forward, backward, and/or side-to-side with respect to the airframe.
Claims7
A method of operating a flight vehicle having a plurality of propellers and an airframe, wherein the airframe has an airframe front and defines an airframe plane, comprising:
- positioning each of the plurality of propellers with a tilt angle of approximately zero with respect to the airframe plane;
- providing power to all of the plurality of motors, wherein the power is sufficient to lift the air vehicle off of the ground so the vehicle is airborne;
- with the vehicle airborne, maintaining or increasing power to a first propeller subset comprising one or more of the plurality of motors;
- with the vehicle airborne, reducing power to a second propeller subset comprising one or more of the plurality of motors, while simultaneously;
- with power reduced or eliminated to the second propeller subset, tilting one or more of the propellers of the second propeller subset forward with respect to the airframe front to a tilt angle of between 60 and 95 degrees;
- with the one or more of the propellers of the second propeller subset tilted forward with respect to the airframe front to a tilt angle of between 60 and 95 degrees, increasing power to the second propeller subset.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.