Granted Patent B2

US 12,275,526 · App. 17/252,201 · Granted Apr 15, 2025

Inventors: Stephen Tibbitts (Spanaway, WA); Ben Gould (Roswell, GA)

B64C39/026B60L15/20B60L50/60B64C29/02B64C39/06B64C39/10B64D27/24B60L2200/10B64C2039/105B64D47/02

Abstract

Claims (27)

1. An aircraft comprising:

a substantially disc-shaped blended wing-body including an upper surface, a rear surface, a trailing edge and an outside edge;

a plurality of power sources housed within the blended wing-body;

a plurality of thrust pod arms attached at a first end to the blended wing-body and each arm has a second end;

a plurality of thruster pairs, each of the plurality of thruster pairs connected to the second end of a thrust pod arm;

an ingress/egress hatch located on the rear surface;

a plurality of navigation and strobe lights located on the outside edge;

front landing gear attached to the upper surface including a pair of parallel motor pod struts or arms, extending out from the upper surface with at least two bottom facing struts extending further to support the front landing gear;

a main landing gear attached proximate the trailing edge;

a set of right and left elevons attached to the rear surface proximate the trailing edge;

a cockpit area including a viewing window located in the upper surface;

a projectable warning light landing zone system including a projector located proximate the trailing edge of the aircraft, and an imaging system coupled to the projector where the imaging system is adapted to project a warning pattern on a surface;

a plurality of flight control instruments located proximate the cockpit area or in a head mounted display; and

a flight control system.

2. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein the plurality of thruster pairs is symmetrically mounted to the upper surface and rear surface.

3. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein the plurality of thruster pairs comprises at least four thruster pairs adapted to have different propeller pitches.

4. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein the substantially disc-shaped blended wing-body comprises a parallel pair of key ribs on each side of the cockpit area and a second pair installed to support each thrust pod arm.

5. The aircraft of claim 1 further comprising on-ship video cameras covering a 360-degree spherical view.

6. The aircraft of claim 1 further comprising a second plurality of flight instruments selected from the group consisting of GPS synthetic vision, and ADS-B (automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast) in and out.

7. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein the aircraft is adapted to fly in a plurality of flight modes including cruise mode and hover mode.

8. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein the power sources comprise a plurality of rechargeable batteries.

9. The aircraft of claim 1 further comprising comparative propeller pitch controls where a first pitch for a first propeller comprises a fine (low) pitch suitable for takeoff and a second pitch for a second propeller comprises a coarse (high) pitch suitable for cruise flight.

10. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein the plurality of thruster pairs include a pair of axially aligned propellers arranged as a tractor and a pusher.

11. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein each thruster pair includes a pair of propellers arranged according to an arrangement selected from the group consisting of Axial, substantially axial, non-axial, contra-rotating, same-rotating, variable number of blades, variable separation distance, and folding blades in a forward propeller.

12. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein the plurality of thruster pairs comprise a right rear upper thruster, a right rear lower thruster, a left front lower thruster, a left front upper thruster, a left rear upper thruster and a left rear lower thruster, a right front upper thruster and a right rear lower thruster.

13. The aircraft of claim 1 includes space for a single pilot 1 having a viewing cone 45 ranging from 90° to about 106°.

14. The aircraft of claim 1 wherein each of the plurality of thruster pairs comprise a ducted fan.

Continuity (2)

References Cited (21)