US Patent Issued to United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force on June 30 for "Retractable weapon bay door mechanism" (New Mexico, Florida Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,668,361, issued on June 30, was assigned to United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force (Kirtland AFB, N.M.).

"Retractable weapon bay door mechanism" was invented by Matthew Thomas Miller (Tallahassee, Fla.) and Chung-Jen Tam (Albuquerque, N.M.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Various embodiments are directed to a weapon bay door mechanism configured to fully retract weapon bay doors into the weapon bay such that a fixed or turret-mounted optical, laser, or directed energy weapon or device deployed therefrom benefits from 360deg line of sight (side-to-side view) of the surroundings beneath the aircraft once th...