US Patent Issued to Merlin Technology on Dec. 30 for "Advanced emergency collective actuator with friction pull-off and method for a helicopter" (Washington Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 31 -- United States Patent no. 12,509,223, issued on Dec. 30, was assigned to Merlin Technology Inc. (Kent, Wash.).

"Advanced emergency collective actuator with friction pull-off and method for a helicopter" was invented by Mark Marvin (Tacoma, Wash.), John E. Mercer (Gig Harbor, Wash.) and Derek Vetter (Olympia, Wash.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An emergency collective actuator includes an actuator motor to produce an actuation force and an actuator linkage that directly engages a friction control lever that is pivotally supported on the collective stick of a helicopter to apply the actuation force directly to the friction control lever such that the actuation force ...