US Patent Issued to Textron Innovations on Feb. 24 for "Tandem tiltrotor aircraft" (Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,559,231, issued on Feb. 24, was assigned to Textron Innovations Inc. (Providence, R.I.).

"Tandem tiltrotor aircraft" was invented by John Robert Wittmaak (Newark, Texas), Stephen Yibum Chung (Keller, Texas), Matthew Edward Louis (Fort Worth, Texas) and Steven M. Loveland (Fort Worth, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A tandem tiltrotor aircraft in which the tiltrotor assemblies are operably coupled at the forward and aft ends of the fuselage of the aircraft is disclosed. The tiltrotor assemblies are capable of rotating between a vertical lift position and a horizontal flight position. The in-line location of the tiltrotor assemblies a...