Rapid assembly aircraft for ground surveillance

In an aircraft having a fuselage, wing, stabilizer and a rudder, and engine means for thrusting the aircraft, the wing having substantially dihedral, and being free of ailerons, the combination comprising

• a) a single rate gyroscope carried by the aircraft and operatively connected with the rudder for controlling the rudder,
• b) the aircraft having a principal axis extending lengthwise of the fuselage, and yaw axis normal to the principal axis, and upwardly and downwardly relative to the fuselage, the principal axis and yaw axis defining an intersection locus,
• c) the gyroscope having an axis of sensitivity which extends upwardly and is tilted forwardly from said locus and relative to the yaw axis, whereby the rate gyroscope is responsive to roll of the aircraft about said principal axis to produce a first output, and the gyroscope is also responsive to yaw of the aircraft about said yaw axis to produce a second output,
• d) and means operatively connected between the gyroscope and rudder to be responsive to either of said outputs to displace the rudder in a direction to counteract said roll and/or said yaw, whereby rate gyroscope control of stability is obtained using rudder control only.

In a terrain surveillance aircraft of relatively small size, adapted to be assembled from components that fit closely together, the combination comprising

• a) a fuselage having a relatively enlarged forward portion and a relatively reduced size rearward portion, with vertical stabilizer area, the aircraft having a principal axis which extends forwardly through the fuselage, and a yaw axis which extends normal to the principal axis and upwardly and downwardly relative to the fuselage, the principal axis and yaw axis defining an intersection locus,
• b) a propeller, electric motor drive therefor, all carried by said fuselage forward portion,
• c) a center wing panel having removable attachment to said fuselage forward portion to extend transversely relative thereto,
• d) wing tips having attachment to opposite ends of said center panel to extend laterally therefrom, and with dihedral relative thereto,
• e) and horizontal tail structure attached to said fuselage rearward portion, said fuselage rearward portion removably attached to said fuselage forward portion,
• f) the fuselage forward portion includes a vertical pylon that projects upwardly above the level of the remainder of the fuselage forward portion, the pylon having an upper portion that extends generally forwardly, the center wing panel having rearwardly interlockable connection with said upper portion of the pylon allowing relatively forward detachment of the center wing panel from the pylon upon predetermined shock impact of the fuselage forward portion with the ground, there being electrical terminals carried by the pylon and center wing panel that interconnect in response to said rearward interlocking connection of the upper portion of the pylon with the center wing panel, and which detach in response to said relatively forward detachment of the center wing panel from the pylon, said one of the terminals connected with the battery, and the other of the terminals connected with the propeller drive,
• g) the aircraft having a rudder, and including a rate gyroscope carried by said fuselage and operatively connected with the rudder for controlling same, the gyroscope located at said locus and having an axis of sensitivity extending upwardly and tilted forwardly from said locus and relative to said yaw axis at an angle between 10 degrees and 50 degrees relative thereto to be responsive to both yaw and roll of the aircraft about said yaw axis and said principal axis, respectively, for controlling the rudder to counteract both yaw and roll, which are both controlled by the rudder.

In the method of operating a terrain surveillance, powdered aircraft having an on-board video camera that is not gimballed relative to the aircraft, the aircraft comprising multiple components including a rudder, the steps that include

• a) assembling said components into aircraft configuration at of near a launch site, the aircraft then having a principal axis and a yaw axis defining an intersection locus,
• b) launching the aircraft at said site with no human pilot on board same,
• c) remotely controlling the flight path of the aircraft by radio or cable link, to fly to a location for terrain surveillance,
• d) operating the on-board video camera to survey the terrain while varying yaw of the aircraft to provide sweep viewing of the terrain,
• e) and recovering the aircraft by controlling its flight to steeply descend to a landing zone,
• f) said assembling step including installing a gyroscope on the aircraft at closely proximate said locus to have its sensitive axis extended upwardly and tilted forwardly from said locus and relative to the yaw axis at between 10.degree. and 40.degree. and to control the rudder of the aircraft in feed-back control mode, thereby to minimize wind induced rolling and yawing of the aircraft about said principal axis and said yaw axis respectively, during said video camera survey of the terrain said gyroscope operated as the only automatic feed back control of said yawing and rolling.