CONVERTIPLANE WITH NEW AERODYNAMIC AND TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS WHICH MAKE THEAIRCRAFT SAFE AND USABLE

• US 20160167780A1
• Filed: 08/07/2014
• Published: 06/16/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 08/12/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: UNIT1 Srl
• Original Assignee: UNIT 1SRL
• Inventors: GIOVENGA, Pietro
• Granted Patent: US 9,919,796 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 29/0033 the propellers being tiltable relative to the fuselage
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 3/385 Variable incidence wings
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 3/54 Varying in area
• CPC Class Codes: B64C 39/024 of the remote controlled vehicle type, i.e. RPV
• CPC Class Codes: B64D 27/08 within, or attached to, fuselages
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 10/25 Fixed-wing aircraft VTOL aircraft B64U10/20
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 30/10 Wings
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 30/20 Rotors; Rotor supports
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 30/26 Ducted or shrouded rotors
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 50/14 ducted or shrouded
• CPC Class Codes: B64U 50/19 using electrically powered motors
• CPC Class Codes: Y02T 50/10 Drag reduction

Abstract

A convertiplane has the ability to take off like a helicopter and then fly horizontally like a conventional aircraft. The aircraft includes a variable incidence front wing of variable span located below the fuselage and mounted on a structure in the form of a venturi tube, a rear wing having two propellers for controlling the stability of the vehicle in pitch and roll installed therein, two counter-rotating, pivotally mounted ducted propellers equipped with four flaps orthogonal to each other provided on the sides of the cockpit, engines placed behind the cockpit close to the center of gravity, a static balancing system for controlling the center of gravity of the aircraft consisting of a weight placed in the lower part of the fuselage, self-propelled on the track rack longitudinally to the fuselage, and a digital flight control system.

Claims

1. Convertiplane, comprising a supporting fuselage, supporting two complex wing surfaces, one in front and one in back, both aerodynamically bearers, the fuselage have placed inside two engines which are connected to each other as tandem, placed behind the pilots, these give the motion to two counter-rotating ducted propeller with variable pitch, possibly also with cyclic variation of the pitch, placed at the sides of the fuselage, their backbone is placed on the vertical plane passing through the center of gravity of the aircraft, the rear wing surfaces contain, at the ends in their profile, two small propellers pitch reversible, in the lower part of the fuselage is placed a weight longitudinally self-propelled and a digital control system of the assets of flight, managed by three computers, that receive data from sensors accelerometers, gyroscopic, flexed metric and trim, there is a system of navigation and piloting, which considers the aeronautical and road maps using a GPS, characterized by the fact that the convertiplane adopts a series of technical and aerodynamic solutions that allow the aircraft to fly safely, the aircraft has the characteristic of being composed with a fuselage sections (vertical and horizontal) that respect each other (+/−

10%) the ratio between 1;

4.5 width/height and length, the fuselage supports the wing surfaces connected to her through two shelves as structural supports, these shelves have shaping such as to bring the fuselage from the front wings of about 30 centimeters above it, this structure creates, with the help of a fairing, a venturi tube that enhances the bearing capacity of the ‘

wing area located below the nacelle itself, shelves support a tubular axis aluminum placed on the axis of aerodynamic lift of the wing (fire), in that axis, integral with the fuselage, is placed a tube integral with the wings front, and with bearings, allows these to rotate to change the incidence, such a solution, with a higher incidence increases lift at low speeds and with lower incidence decreases the aerodynamic resistance at high speed, the front wings can be rotated of 14°

about their longitudinal axis, parallel to the plane of the horizontal flight of the aircraft, normally from 3°

to 6° and

their ends can be retracted within the central parts of the same, in such a way as to allow a variation of the lift and the running resistance of the aircraft and to pass from a flight horizontal trim to the vertical one and vice versa without incurring the danger of loss of altitude or loss of control of the vehicle, the axis of the tubular support to the front wing is perpendicular to the direction of horizontal flight and is connected to the central structural element of the front wings, the axis together with other structures creates a volume boxed to which are anchored the longitudinal members of the wing front that protrude to the right and to the left of the fuselage, in each side of the wing, between the mentioned longitudinal members is formed a space suitable for the reception of the retractable wing of suitable length such as to occupy the whole the half wing attached to the fuselage until stiff ribs under the fuselage itself, the two half wings retractable, are controlled by a hydraulic or electromechanical system controlled by the onboard computer system for buoyancy control;

in the ends of the retractable wings are placed winglets to improve aerodynamics and reduce aerodynamical resistance, the rear wing surfaces are aerodynamically bearers and are supported by the empennage, they are placed in a position such as not to be influenced by the yield air of the pushing ducted propeller, rear wings move the point of application of the lift of the complex of the wing surfaces (Fire wing of the complex) towards the center of gravity of the aircraft, the fixed rear wings are to incidence of about 3°

to the direction running, on the opposite ends of these are placed, in the thickness of the section of the same and parallel to their rope, two variable pitch propellers that can vary pushing from −

20 kg+20 kg each independently creating rotation torques to counter any rolling motion and pitching during the flight in vertical orientation, such propellers are moved by electric motors and their pitch is controlled by electromechanical actuators at high speed, controlled management system of buoyancy;

to the sides of the fuselage there are two ducted propellers that rotate from −

2°

to +100°

(counterclockwise) on the supporting axis, respect to the plane vertical to the plane of horizontal flight of the aircraft, with functions of the bearing capacity and governability in vertical asset and pushed forward in the horizontal asset, these supporting propellers can have normal variation of the pitch jointly to the possible cyclic pitch variation, the front wings and propellers can rotate on their axis independently of each other;

on each half wing, there are two front and rear spoilers (8 total) one of these for each half wing is managed automatically by the computer control system during the horizontal flight and the other by the pilot for manual operations of government of the airplane;

The airplane also makes use of a management system of the center of gravity, it is constituted by a weight, suitably calibrated, self-propelled on the rail, which at the time of vertical takeoff, commanded by the computer system management, on solicitation of three gyroscopes digital, moving longitudinally makes that the center of gravity falls exactly on the axis of thrust of the propellers.

2. The convertiplane of claim 1, characterized in that the ducted propellers placed at the sides of the fuselage are supported from the axis made with a tubular placed on the plane vertical to the longitudinal axis of center of gravity of the aircraft fixed to the supporting structure of the plane, in this rotate the axis of transmission of motion to the propellers, the front wings and the propellers can rotate on their axis independently of each other, in the final part of intubation of the propellers are placed on orthogonal axes four ailerons which serve for the aircraft government during flight at vertical asset.

3. The convertiplane of claim 1, characterized in that the management of the rotation of the bearing elements, wing surfaces and propellers, together with the position of the movable weight and the thrust of the propellers placed in the profile of the rear wings, both for control of the proper position of the CG/asset at any time of the flight is coordinated and controlled simultaneously, but in different ways, according to the specific flight conditions and as required by the pilot, the computer system management framework that linked to sensors accelerometers, gyroscopic, measuring tapes and trim, measure the attitude of the aircraft, the bearing capacity of the apparatuses, and then determines its rotation, for the bearing capacity, the position of the weight to the center of gravity and the thrust of the propellers rear for the control of the pitching and roll at low speed.

4. The convertiplane of claim 1, characterized in that the control elements of the structure of flight can be four, one constituted by two propellers placed at the end of the rear wings in the thickness of the section and parallel to the wing chord, moved by electric motors and pitch variable operated by electromechanical fast actuators for a complete inversion of the thrust +/−

100% (about 20 kg), designed to control the movements of pitch and roll at low speed, jointly to the possible cyclic variation of the pitch of the supporting propellers the other consisting of a weight placed in the most bottom of the fuselage centerline, self-propelled on a rail longitudinally, act, with its movement, to place at the time of takeoff the center of gravity on the axis of thrust of the propellers to the horizontal attitude and the center of gravity in an optimal position relative to the center of lift (fire) of the wing system, the third is formed by a series of flaps on each wing which are juxtaposed with those of government optimizing the horizontal stability, in fact, on each wing, front and rear there are two ailerons (8 altogether), one of these, for each wing, is managed automatically by the asset system control during horizontal flight and the other by the pilot to manual operations of government of the aircraft at the indication of 3 digital gyroscopes, the propellers and the weight of self-propelled are used for the vertical position, the ailerons and also the weight for the horizontal asset.

5. The convertiplane of claim 1, characterized in that the system engines (1 or 2) is placed inside the fuselage, in case of double motor these are stacked in tandem with each other and connected with a transmission system composed of mixed of sprockets and chains, also with reductive function of the number of revolutions of the propellers, by a transmission axis parallel to the shafts of the motors that motors via two bevel gears inverted enable propellers rotate against for the annulment torque drift of the aircraft.

6. The convertiplane of claim 1, characterized in that the front wings can be retracted up to 50% of their length inside the first part of the wings themselves, in fact, in each of the lateral wings, between the two side members of the internal wing, connected with the support brackets, is a space suitable for the reception of the final external retractable wing at the ends of the wings retractable fins are placed end to improve aerodynamics, reduce rolling resistance and decrease the size maximum of the aircraft.

7. The convertiplane of claim 1, characterized in that for the navigation system uses the overlap of a terrestrial and aircraft cartographic system to allows the rider to get as close as possible to the desired point of arrival and allows the vertical takeoff and landing attended by almost automatic determination of the landing point identified by a camera connected to a GPS for the automatic determination of the coordinates of the location, near the landing is assisted by proximity sensors useful for avoiding obstacles.

8. The convertiplane of claim 1, characterized in that the steering system is wireless and allows the aircraft to be remote controlled from the ground without driver with the simple release of the control console from the aircraft, in this situation the console becomes a radio command to distance.

9. The convertiplane of claim 1, characterized in that the aircraft is equipped with an electronic asset management system that is informed by three gyros electronic for the control of the three axes of the aircraft, by the tension sensors of the wing structures for the control of the bearing capacity, a GPS system to control the location, altitude and speed of the aircraft coupled with the typical aircraft instruments, pitometer, altimeter, compass, trim, accelerometer, sensors are managed by three computers which run during the vertical flight asset of the aircraft by moving the counterweight for positioning the center of gravity axis of the propellers, as a function of the weight distribution at the time of take-off, and the propellers on the rear wings during the flight with vertical thrust, the passage from the vertical asset to horizontal flight, and vice versa, managing the carrying capacities of the wings, the position of the gravity center and the thrust of the propellers maintaining the aircraft flight on the axis of pre-established without loss of altitude or other drawbacks. During the transition assets the commands, stick and pedals, manage, during the vertical flight the ailerons of intubation propellers, in horizontal flight the ailerons of the wings, the tail planes, and only in aid, the ailerons intubation of the propellers, the three computers manage as part of pre-determined intervals and in different phases of flight, the power of the engines, the pitch of the propellers, the incidence of the front wings, the extraction or retraction of the semi outer front wings, the three computers operate separately in cascade, the first controlling all the operations described, the second repeats simultaneously to the first all the operations provided by the system and the third, in addition to repeat all of the same operations, check that there are no discrepancies between the two and in case of malfunction excludes that broken down and joins the residual communicating malfunction.