US Patent Issued to Sierra Nevada on Sept. 16 for "Modular fixed VTOL with line replaceable units" (California Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,415,600, issued on Sept. 16, was assigned to Sierra Nevada Co. LLC (Sparks, Nev.).

"Modular fixed VTOL with line replaceable units" was invented by Emily Agostino (Walnut Creek, Calif.), Sean Foxen (Alameda, Calif.), Curtis Leo (Los Gatos, Calif.) and Stephen Morris (Sunnyvale, Calif.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A modular VTOL drone aircraft can include a primary processor, a plurality of propellers, one or more line replacement modules ("LRMs") and one or more line replacement units ("LRUs"). LRMs can include a fuselage, a center wing, two booms, two outer wings, two vertical tails, a horizontal tail, and/or an engine. LRUs can incl...