US Patent Issued to Textron Innovations on March 11 for "VTOL aircraft with tilting rotors and tilting ducted fans" (Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,246,827, issued on March 11, was assigned to Textron Innovations Inc. (Providence, R.I.).

"VTOL aircraft with tilting rotors and tilting ducted fans" was invented by Kirk L. Groninga (Keller, Texas) and Daniel B. Robertson (Southlake, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An exemplary tiltrotor aircraft having a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) flight mode and a forward flight mode includes tiltable rotors located at forward boom ends, tiltable ducted fans located at wings aft of the forward boom ends, and aft rotors located on aft boom portions."

The patent was filed on Dec. 6, 2023, under Application No. 18/530,482.

*For further i...