US1854220A - Method and means of protecting aircraft - Google Patents

Description

April 19, 1932. B. J. POLLARD METHOD AND MEANS OF PROTECTING AIRCRAFT 2 Sheet s-Sheet Filed Feb. '7, 1930 INVENTOR. Bernard J- P I/0rd April 19, 1932. B. J. POLLARD METHOD AND MEANS OF PROTECTING AIRCRAFT Filed Feb. '7, 1930 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 H H l "H l l dr l lufil l H H H Bernard J. Pollard BY MQM ATTORNEY-5 Patented Apr. 19, 1932 tsazza BERNARD POLLARD, OF DETROIT, MICHIGAN METHOD AND MEANS OF PROTECTING AIRCRAFT Application filed February 7, 1930. Serial No. 426,682.

My invention relates to equipment for air craft and has particular reference to a process and means for preventing the formation of ice upon the various parts of the airship, as well as a method and means whereby the apparatus may be utilized to put out any fire which might be started in-the craft.

As is well known, one of the most dangerous hazards encountered by the modern pilot while flying in cold weather 1s the formation of ice on the wings and fuselage of the plane; This formation of ice adds appreciably to the weight of the craft and for that reason it becomes impossible to navigate properly. On the mail routes it is often necessary to cross mountain ranges and fly through atmosphere loaded with moisture.

During cold weather this. moisture adheres to the various parts of the plane and rapidly freezes. Many crashes have resulted from.

the pilots' inability to climb over mountain peaks, due solely to the added weight of the ice so formed on the aircraft.

An object of my invention is to provide neans for overcoming this danger, and in loing so I contemplate the use of a liquid vhich has the property of preventing ice for-- nation applied over the various parts of the hip as a coating. Calcium chloride suits my purpose admirably, its utility for the purpose of melting snow and ice being aleady known, but I contemplate a novel methd of applying the liquor as a relatively thin oating over the various parts of the aircraft hich are subiected to the formation of ice 1818011.

Another object of my invention is to pro-' ide an apparatus which will perform this lethod of preventing freezing in an etficient 1d economical wa Still another object of my invention is to :sociate with the apparatus above specified eans whereby the liquid may be changed to a solution which will extinguish fire.

Fire often breaks out in the aircraft while e same is in flight. This is often due to eflicient cooling systems for the motor, or

ators, and the subsequent danger of explon should such fire reach the gasoline store chamber is indeed great.

Fire almost invariably results from a crash and, although the crash in itself may not prove fatal, the fire which ensues is often suificient to cause an explosion which proves fatal before the occupants of the craft can extricate themselves.

Inasmuch as it is advisable to provide means for quenching fire which might arise in any part of the airship, as well as preventing the formation of ice over the entire craft,

propose to utilize a single system of distribution both for my ice formation preventative liquid and my fire extinguishing solution.

Still other objects and meritorious features of my invention will become apparent from the following description taken in conjunc-' tion with the drawings wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout the several figures and wherein:

Fig. l is an elevation of a conventional biplane with part broken away for sake of clearness,

Fig. 2 is a plan View of the ship, with part of one upper wing broken away, i

Fig. 3 is a section taken on the line 33 of Fig. 1, and

Fig. 4 is an enlarged sectional plan view of my storage tank and the conduits in immediate connection therewith.

Secured in some convenient portion of the fuselage is a storage chamber 12. This storage chamber may be of any capacity commensurate with the size of the fuselage and is designed to contain some such ice formation preventative as calcium chloride in liquid form. This is commonly called calcium chloride liquor.

A conduit 14 is connected at one end with the lower portion of the tank 12 and at the other with a pump 16. This pump may be driven in any convenient fashion from the motor of the plane, as illustrated in Fig. 1.

- Passage of the liquid through this conduit may be closed by means of the valve 18. The liquid is drawn from the tank 12 by means of the pump 16 and forced through the conduit 20 into a secondary storage chamber 22. The

effective pressure behind the liquid may be accurately controlled by means of the valve 24, which valve may be conveniently actuated from the pilot seat by some such means as a small hand wheel 25.

Prior to opening into the secondary storage tank 22 a third conduit 26 is connected to the conduit 20. This conduit leads back into the storage tank 12 and may be closed by means of valve 28.

lVhere the two conduits and 26 open into one another I provide a two-way valve 30 which may be operated conveniently by a lever 32. Thus, by simply lever 32 the liquor being drawn from tank 12 by the pump 16 may be directed either back into the tank 12 or into the secondary storage chamber 22.

Opening out from this secondary storage chamber 22 are a. plurality of conduits which lead to various parts of the plane. There are two main outlets 34 and 36, each controlled by an independent Valve as illustrated diagrammatically in the drawings, which lead into what may be called, for the sake of convenience, the wing header conduit 38 and the fuselage header conduit 40. It will be noted that each of these header conduits is provided with a valve 42 which permits control of the flow of liquid to the right side of the wings or the left side of the wings or the right or left side of the fuselage. The advantage of this individual control is ob vious inasmuch as the direction of flight or direction of wind may be such as to render only one side of the plane, including its wings and fuselage, susceptible to the formation of ice.

The wing header conduit 38 opens on each side into a conduit 44 which extends upwardly and downwardly to points within the upper and lower wings respectively. They are connected inside the wings in a T-joint to a conduit 46 which extends parallel to the fuselage. At each extremity of this er aduit 46 a conduit 48 is connected, as cle rly illustrated in Fig. 2. At regular intervals throughout the length of these conduits there are small spray nozzles 50 which project through the wing structure. It will be noted that the spray nozzles located at the front of the wings are located below the top portion of the wing and direct the spray for wardly. It is obvious that the air currents function to drive the spray back over the wing structure. 46 on the inside of the wing structure the streamline of the wings is maintained and no additional wind resistance results.

As clearly illustrated in Figs. 1 and 3 the lower wing 52 is equipped for spraying in precisely the same manner as the upper wing 54.

The fuselage header conduit 40 functions to feed various conduits indicated by the numeral 56 on both sides of the fuselage. It will be noted that those of the conduits 56 manipulating the By locating the conduits closed, and

which extend along the length of the fuselage 58 are located on the outside thereof. Spray nozzles 50 are located at regularly spaced intervals along these conduits in exactly the same manner as described in connection with the wing structure.

Opening from the secondary storage chamber 22 is a third conduit 58 which functions to supply another conduit 60. This conduit 60 is likewise provided with spray nozzles spaced at suitable intervals along its length, but is located on the inside of the fuselage for purposes hereinafter more clearly brought out. Conduit 58 is provided with anindividual control valve 62.

It will be noted that the conduits 56 are connected to various similar conduits 64 which are secured to the vertical and horizontal tail rudders of the plane. These conduits 64 also are provided with spray nozzles.

Thus it is obvious that I have provided means for selectively and at will coating any or all of certain portions of the airplane with liquid which will prevent the formation of ice on the part so coated.

It is well known that when calcium chloride liquor is combined with sodium and a powerful acid such as sulphuric acid the resulting gases create a tremendous pressure in proportion to the volume occupied by the liquid and that the resulting solutionis an extremely efficient fire extinguisher. By proyiding means whereby acid and soda may instantaneously be dropped into the storage tank 12, the apparatus heretofore described becomes a very effective fire fighting means.

In this connection I have provided two smaller tanks 66 and 68 which are set on top of the storage tank 12. One of these tanks contains soda and the other sulphuric acid. By manipulating the lever 70 which is located beside the pilot seat these ingredients are immediately dropped into the storage tank 12 and the solution therein may 9 either pumped through the spraying system already described, or may be led through the conduits 7 2 and discharged through the hose 74 which is conveniently located adjacent the pilots seat.

It is obvious that there might be occasion to quench fire when the motor had gone dead and the pump 16 was inoperative. In such an emergency it would simply'be necessary to close valve 18 and open valve 76, and the pressure created by the gases evolved from dumping in the soda and acid would suffice to discharge a powerful stream through tht hose 74.

The valve 78 in the conduit 72 is normall would simply be opened in th' event that a fire started while the motor wa running. Valve 7 6 is likewise normall closed and would be opened only in the even that fire broke out when the motor was deat In Fig. 4 I have shown the general structure of my storage tank 12 the top being removed therefrom in this figure. It will be noted that the return conduit 26 extends into the storage chamber and is provided with a series of branches 80. Each of these branches 80 is of smaller diameter than the conduit 26 and opens towards the opposite extremity of the tank. This functions to reduce the head of the liquor returning through conduit 26 and directsa stream through the branches 80 which "impinges upon the end Wall of the tank, thereby agitating the mixture to mainconduits, manual control means tam a proper solution.

Various modifications will be apparent to those skilled in the art and for that reason I intend to limit myself only within the scope of the appended claims.

I claim.

1. In combination'with an aircraft having a cockpit and pilots seat therein, conduits extending along the wings and fuselage of said aircraft, a single flexible extensible conduit adjacent the pilots seat, a supply of anti-freeze solution arranged to supply all of said conduits, pressure means for forcing the liquid through the conduits,manual control means operable from the pilots seat for directing the flow of liquid through any single one of said conduits or all of them simultaneously, and means manually operable from the pilots seat for instantaneously converting said anti-freeze solution into a fire extinguishing solution.

2. In combination with an aircraft having a cockpit and pilots seat therein, conduits extending along the wings of said aircraft, a supply of anti-freeze solution arranged to supply said conduit, pressure means for forcing the solution through the conduits, manual control means operable from the pilots seat for directing the flow of the solution through the conduits, and means manual- I ly operable from the pilot seat for instantaneously converting said anti-freeze solution into a fire extinguishing solution.

3. In combination with an aircraft having a cockpit and pilots seat therein, conduits extending along the fuselage of said tank through said solution through the conduits, manual control means operable from the pilot seat for directing the flow of liquid through either the fuselage or wing conduits, or both, and means manually o erable from the pilot seat for instantaneous y converting said antifreeze solution into a fire extinguishing solution. i

5. In combination with an aircraft spray mechanism, a liquid supply tank, means for forcing the liquid under pressure from said tank through said system and thence back to the tank said spray system including a. return conduit extending into said tank and provided with a plurality of spaced arcuate discharge passageways adapted to emit the returning liquid into the tank.

6. In combination with an aircraft spray mechanism, a liquid supply tank, means for forcing theliquid under pressure from said system and thence back to the tank, said spray system including a return conduit extending into said tank, said return conduit including a plurality of armate passageways of smaller diameter'than the return conduit and adapted to direct the liquid into the tank at different angles.

7. In combination with an aircraft, 'conduits extending along portions of the exterior surface thereof, a supply of anti-freeze solution arranged to supply said conduit, pressure means for forcing the solution through the conduits, manual control means operable to direct the flow of the solution through the conduits, and means manually operable to instantaneously convert said anti-freeze solution into a fire extinguishing solution.

In testimony whereof I, BERNARD J. P01.- LARD, sign this specification. I

BERNARD J. POLLARD.

aircraft, a supply of anti-freeze solution 'arranged to supply said conduit, pressure means for forcing the solution through the operable from the pilots seat for directing the flow of the solution through the conduits, and means manually operable from the pilot seat for instantaneously converting said antifreeze solution into a fire extinguishing solution.

4. In combination with an aircraft having a cockpit and pilots seat therein, conduits extending along the wings and fuselage of said aircraft, a supply of anti-freeze solution arranged to supply said wing and fuselage conduits, pressure means for forcing the

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