ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,291,917, issued on May 6, was assigned to Textron Innovations Inc. (Providence, R.I.).
"Door management" was invented by John Robert Wittmaak Jr. (Newark, Texas) and Michael Rinehart (Euless, Texas).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A door management system on an aircraft includes a fuselage extending along a longitudinal axis in a fore-aft direction parallel to forward flight, an opening in a sidewall of the fuselage, a door mounted on the sidewall to slide in the fore-aft direction between a closed position covering the opening and an open position revealing the opening, a cable attached to the fuselage and the door and a speed governor op...