GB930794A - Anchorage equipment for aircraft - Google Patents

Abstract

930,794. Anchoring aircraft. MINISTER OF AVIATION. May 3, 1961 [Feb. 3, 1960], No. 3758/60. Class 4. Apparatus for restricting relative lateral movement between an aircraft, in the embodiment a helicopter, and a landing platform, or for anchoring the aircraft to the platform comprises, on the platform 11 a series of corrugations 16 of V cross-section and on the helicopter a ski undercarriage comprising a pair of rectangularsection skids 12 each formed with a downwardly protruding peg 14 having a coned end to engage a corrugation.- Alternatively the peg may be an extension of a piston urged downwardly by fluid pressure against the action of a release spring. The invention is particularly applicable to a landing platform on a ship in which relative movement between the ship and helicopter may be induced by rolling of the ship. To deal with excessive rolling motion a fluid pressure operated peg 41 is bored axially at 43 and slotted transversely at its end 42 to accommodate a plunger 44 urged upwardly by a spring 49 and formed with a handwheel 49 and a shaped lower end 45 corresponding in profile to the cut-out portion of the coned end 41. The corrugations 31 are undercut at 32 and when the helicopter has landed with the coned end 41 engaged in a corrugation, the handwheel 48 is depressed and rotated to bring end 45 into locking engagement with the undercuts 32. A single peg may be positioned beneath the centre of gravity of the helicopter and the pegs may be spring-urged into contact with the corrugations.