Personal aircraft
First Claim
1. An aircraft comprising:
- a fuselage;
a forward wing coupled to the fuselage and located forward of a center of gravity;
an aft wing coupled to the fuselage and located aft of the center of gravity;
a first mounting boom extending a port side of the fuselage via a first plurality of struts;
a second mounting boom extending from a starboard side of the fuselage via a second plurality of struts;
a first plurality of lift rotors, each rotor mounted on the first mounting boom between the forward wing and the aft wing on the port side of the fuselage, wherein each rotor produces an amount of vertical thrust independent of levels of vertical thrust produced by the other rotors;
a second plurality of lift rotors, each rotor mounted on the second mounting boom between the forward wing and the aft wing on the starboard side of the fuselage, wherein each rotor produces an amount of vertical thrust independent of levels of vertical thrust produced by the other rotors; and
a propeller coupled to the fuselage and adapted to provide forward thrust.
8 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
A safe, quiet, easy to control, efficient, and compact aircraft configuration is enabled through the combination of multiple vertical lift rotors, tandem wings, and forward thrust propellers. The vertical lift rotors, in combination with a front and rear wing, permits a balancing of the center of lift with the center of gravity for both vertical and horizontal flight. This wing and multiple rotor system has the ability to tolerate a relatively large variation of the payload weight for hover, transition, or cruise flight while also providing vertical thrust redundancy. The propulsion system uses multiple lift rotors and forward thrust propellers of a small enough size to be shielded from potential blade strike and provide increased perceived and real safety to the passengers. Using multiple independent rotors provides redundancy and the elimination of single point failure modes that can make the vehicle non-operable in flight.
77 Citations
11 Claims
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1. An aircraft comprising:
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a fuselage; a forward wing coupled to the fuselage and located forward of a center of gravity; an aft wing coupled to the fuselage and located aft of the center of gravity; a first mounting boom extending a port side of the fuselage via a first plurality of struts; a second mounting boom extending from a starboard side of the fuselage via a second plurality of struts; a first plurality of lift rotors, each rotor mounted on the first mounting boom between the forward wing and the aft wing on the port side of the fuselage, wherein each rotor produces an amount of vertical thrust independent of levels of vertical thrust produced by the other rotors; a second plurality of lift rotors, each rotor mounted on the second mounting boom between the forward wing and the aft wing on the starboard side of the fuselage, wherein each rotor produces an amount of vertical thrust independent of levels of vertical thrust produced by the other rotors; and a propeller coupled to the fuselage and adapted to provide forward thrust. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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Specification