Le said:
Momentarily meaning that sometimes 10 mph is desirable, and sometimes
100 mph is desirable, and sometimes speeds in between is desirable, so
an aircraft where entire range is accessible might be desirable.
Then, two aicraft, traveling 10mph each, colliding, might not result
in catastrophic failure.
An aircraft staying airborne at 10 MPH sounds to me like:
* A lighter-than-air craft (tell me how it will achieve 100 MPH) - may
still have trouble weathering a 10 MPH collision
* something slow and fragile, towards the Gossamer Condor or the
Gossamer Albatross (tell me how this will survive a 10 MPH collission or
achieve 100 MPH)
* Helicopter or Osprey sort of a thing (with collisions involving rotor
contact usually being catastrophic)
I am not a pilot, I merely know one and know weather well, and I know
that airspeed is normally expressed in knots - nautical miles per hour.
Also, an aircraft that is airborne at very slow airspeed still has to
deal with sharing airspace with fixed wing aircraft that need airspeeds
mostly near or over 40 knots to be airborne, unless the slow aircraft is
restricted to where Cessnas and Piper Cubs are prohibited but aircraft are
permitted (where?).
Helicopters have some expectation of moving at speeds fairly usual for
fixed wing aircraft unless they are hovering - usually either close to the
ground or in urban areas usually within TCA areas below the TCA conical
area.
Ultralights are prohibited in urban areas - don't plan on much
utilization of ultralights (or much of anything else besides
news/traffic helicopters and police helicopters) where helicopters have
much use of hovering at 1,000 feet or whatever in urban areas. And
outside TCA areas, fixed wing aircraft are allowed at 1,000 and 2,000
feet!
And farming areas have some incidence of fixed wing aircraft spraying
insecticides or whatever onto farms at low altitudes, and that may require
permits from FAA.
Also keep in mind that most smaller aircraft have pressure altimeters,
subject to frequent need for adjustment according to reports from nearest
airport, and are still inherently inaccurate far from that airport in a
significant pressure pattern and also inherently inaccurate far from the
airport altitude unless the average temperature from yours to that of the
reporting airport is "close to average".
Do you plan on having a pressure altimeter, a radar altimeter (which
reportas altitude above ground, while you need to know your altitude above
sea level and thus ground elevation every mile of the way)? Or a
GPS-based altimeter (reporting latitude above sea level)? Regardless of
altimeter type, you need to know how high the ground is to be above the
ground to the proper extent and also be above sea level to the
proper/planned extent.
Depending on how aircraft is constructed, it
might happen that most low-speed collisions do not result in
catastrophic failure. For example, an aircraft with exposed propeller
might result in more damage than one without.
So tell us what your aircraft without an exposed propeller is. Does it
merely have the propeller within a tube and/or screens?
If you want patent protection first, a provisional patent application
(with deadline to use towards a full utility patent application of 1 year)
costs maybe $130 or so last time I checked. Plus something cose to
$15 for Express Mail, which is the *significantly* preferred way to
submit an application by mail - otherwise learn how to do so online
to USPTO.
Include at least one drawing, at least one claim, and at least some sort
of "detailed description" to be used with the drawing(s) to describe the
invention. It helps to make some effort to achieve some resemblance to an
actual utility patent application or an actual granted patent or published
patent application. For a provisional, my experience indicates little or
no harm to omit assignee, references, and "application data sheet" (or
whatever that is). But you have a deadline of 1st anniversary of the
provisional filing date (mailing date if via Express Mail) to use the
provisional towards a full utility patent application.
In a provisional, the drawing does not need to be of formal quality,
but there are technical requirements if the filing is done online.
In a full utility application, drawings do not need to be of "formal
quality", but should be good enough to make a decent impression upon the
patent examiner. If you get an assignee lined up or have plans to use the
patent for your own manufacture, then you should have in the budget a
draftsperson for "formal quality" patent drawings once you get notice that
you have claims allowed (you will get a patent) and accordingly
notification of requirement for drawings to be redone to "formal quality"
if they are not there yet.
So you can get patent protection for somewhat over $100 and a little
work and some commitment.
So a lot depends on the design of the aircraft. It is not an inherent
necessity of flying that most collisions result in catastrophic
failure. That is only an attribute of existing aircraft.
Keep in mind that your aircraft is subject to collission with "existing
aircraft". How does that affect collision survivability to your aircraft
or the other aircraft? Can a Cessna survive colliding with your aircraft
at 40-60-plus knot airspeed? Can your aircraft survive such a collission?
- Don Klipstein (
[email protected])
