An aircraft for vertical take-off and landing includes an aircraft assembly which includes at least one first wing portion providing a lift force during a horizontal flight, at least one wing opening disposed on a vertical axis of the at least one first wing portion and at least one propeller-based thruster positioned inside the at least one wing opening to provide vertical thrust during a vertical flight. The aircraft assembly can further include air vents positioned inside at least one of the wing openings. The air vents can further include louvres positioned over or under the air vents to open and close the wing openings. The thruster can further be used to provide flight control for the aircraft.

Various technologies pertaining to dynamically identifying travel segments to be taken by a traveler traveling in a region are described herein, where observations about travel segments in the region are sparse and subject to alteration. A computer-implemented graph can be loaded into a memory, where the computer-implemented graph is representative of the region. The computer-implemented graph includes nodes that represent locations in the region and edges that represent travel segments of the region, where the edges have costs assigned thereto, and further where there is a defined statistical relationship between the costs. When an observation about a travel path is received, using the computer-implemented graph, inferences can be made about costs of traversing other travel paths in the region.

A method to assist in a search and rescue mission comprises: scanning at least a portion of a terrain at a search and rescue site using a scanning device to obtain searched area information, wherein searched area information is information captured by the scanning device of the at least a portion of the terrain; analyzing the searched area information obtained after scanning the at least a portion of the terrain; and communicating leading air vehicle information to at least one trailing air vehicle, wherein leading air vehicle information includes searched area information and analysis, and wherein the at least one trailing air vehicle is an air vehicle that reaches the search and rescue site after the at least one leading air vehicle.

A computer method for determining potential wake turbulence by a first aircraft from wake generated by a second aircraft. The computer method includes receiving a signal generated by the second aircraft at the first aircraft and transforming the signal to a first wake turbulence boundary that represents the wake generated by the second aircraft. An intersection volume, which is representative of a zone of dangerous turbulence interactions, is selected for the first aircraft. Based on a determination of intersection between the first wake turbulence boundary and the intersection volume, issuing a warning flag if an intersection exists or continue generating the first wake turbulence boundary and determining whether interactions exist.

This disclosure is directed to systems and methods for smart transitioning between aircraft trajectory management modes. In one example, a system is configured to track a speed of a target aircraft in flight ahead of an own aircraft on which the system is positioned. The system is further configured to determine whether the target aircraft has maintained a rate of change in speed within a selected range of variation in change of speed, for a selected period of time. The system is further configured to enable an activation of a merging trajectory management mode of the own aircraft in response to determining that the own aircraft is in a trajectory management mode transition airspace and that the target aircraft has maintained the rate of change in speed within the selected range of variation in change of speed, for the selected period of time.

An offscreen traffic information indicator system includes signal receivers for receiving traffic messages from proximate air and ground vehicles and a traffic indicator for determining the positions of the host aircraft and the proximate vehicles based on the traffic messages. Based on the locations of the host aircraft and proximate vehicles and their proximity to airport runways, the traffic indicator may designate runways as relevant runways (or receive relevant runway designations from the flight management system of the host aircraft) and designate proximate vehicles as relevant to the host aircraft. A display unit may display, along with a dynamic map of a region near the host aircraft, relevant runway indicators for relevant runways within the mapped region and offscreen traffic indicators for relevant aircraft positioned outside the mapped region.

Communication method for an aircraft (1) comprising the steps of: installing a security system (100 or IDDS) in a non-pressurized zone (2) of the aircraft (1), said security system (100) comprising a GPS localization device (101) with satellite link and an autonomous battery (102);detecting in the GPS localization device (101) at least one position (A) of the aircraft;sending the position (A) to a control station (200) interconnected with the satellite link; said steps of detecting and sending the position (A) being performed if an anomaly is detected.

A path searching apparatus includes: a path searching unit that searches for an optimal path of a movable body that performs traveling from a start node to a goal node by performing a path searching process based on A-Star algorithm, and a predicting unit that predicts a surrounding situation of the movable body at each of times in future. The path searching unit determines whether a first surrounding situation involves a change from a second surrounding situation, on a basis of the predicted surrounding situation, and upon determining that the first surrounding situation involves the change, updates an estimated smallest cost value h* of a node on which the searching has been already performed, on a basis of the first surrounding situation.

A system and method for objectively evaluating an airport runway condition, where conditions pertaining to aircraft landing factors are compiled and used to determine a runway braking condition. One set of conditions pertains to aircraft landing factors, including brake metered pressure, wheel speed, and aircraft deceleration, and a second set of factors relate to pilot controlled parameters. A condition report is generated and made available to pilots of subsequently landing aircrafts prior to landing.

The runway state determined on the ground by an aircraft and provided to the aircraft on approach does not make it possible to account for possible degradation of the runway occurring since the previous determination of that runway state. Updating of this runway state on the basis of a simple comparison between a desired deceleration and an observed deceleration resulting from a degraded runway is not satisfactory either. The disclosure herein thus provides for obtaining a local stopping distance according to a local runway state characterizing a runway zone on which the aircraft is in movement at the time of the landing, this local stopping distance being estimated based on local measurements made in the aircraft; obtaining a reference stopping distance according to a reference runway state; then comparing these two distances with each other to determine whether the local runway state is more degraded than the reference runway state.