ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,441,453, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to Textron Innovations Inc. (Providence, R.I.).
"Aircraft door system and method" was invented by Joseph Allan Smarsh (Andale, Kan.), Evan Michael Johnson (Wichita, Kan.), Timothy Bachman (Wichita, Kan.) and Richard S. Conkling (Kechi, Kan.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An aircraft door system and related closure method. The system involves the use of a ball transfer device as an initial contact made in the closing of an aircraft door. The closing door next encounters guiding and fitting arrangements are also employed to laterally align the lower portion of the aircraft door with the correspondin...