ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 8 -- United States Patent no. 12,434,818, issued on Oct. 7, was assigned to Textron Innovations Inc. (Providence, R.I.).
"Tandem split divergent winglet" was invented by Gonzalo Eduardo Mendoza (Wichita, Kan.), Corey Wailes Hagemeister (Wichita, Kan.) and Kelly Ray Laflin (Andover, Kan.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A tandem split divergent winglet for an aircraft includes a forward sail extending from an outboard end of a wing of the aircraft having a cant angle in a first direction, and an aft sail extending partially from the forward sail and partially from the outboard end of the wing. The aft sail has a cant angle in a second direction opposite the first direction....