General purpose pneumatic power module
AssigneeExelis, Inc.
InventorsLifang Yuan, Nicolas Desimini
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A pneumatic launch system includes a manifold that stores pressurized gas and releases the pressurized gas on command to sequentially open the store retention hooks and eject the store. The manifold includes an eject valve whose main chamber is part of the high pressure gas storage. A hook release valve is controlled by the eject valve for sequential operation of hook opening and store ejection. A manually selectable pitch valve provides pitch setting to proportion the gas delivered to the ejector cylinders. The manifold minimizes flow path restrictions and provides a fast actuation response with minimum variability to unlock the hooks and quickly eject the store.
Claims12
A pneumatic launch system comprising
- an eject valve for forcibly ejecting a store from an aircraft,
- a hook release valve for releasing a hook of the store,
- wherein the eject valve communicates with the hook release valve to actuate the hook release valve for releasing the hook;
- and
- a pressurized vessel in fluid communications with the eject valve for setting a pressure level of fluid in the eject valve at a pressure level of the pressurized vessel,
- wherein the pressure level of the fluid in the eject valve actuates the hook release valve to release the hook, and releases fluid to sequentially eject the store;
- wherein the hook release valve includes a piston having high and low sides, and the fluid in the eject valve is directed to the high side of the piston, forcing the piston to interact with a hook release mechanism to release the hook, and movement of the piston opens a port for fluid flow to ejector cylinders for ejecting the store.
A method of ejecting a store from an aircraft comprising the steps of:
- (a) maintaining a pressure level of an eject valve at a pressure level of a pressurized vessel, wherein the pressurized vessel communicates fluidly with the eject valve;
- (b) releasing high pressure fluid from the pressurized vessel to the eject valve, causing the eject valve to activate, and transmitting the pressure maintained in the eject valve to a hook release valve;
- (c) actuating, by the hook release valve, a hook release mechanism of the store, after transmitting the pressure level from the eject valve;
- and
- (d) sequentially releasing fluid from the eject valve to ejector cylinders for ejecting the store.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.