USA As Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Daniel P Everson

Eric J Silberg

Phong Hua Nguyen

Naipei P Bi

David J Haas

According to typical inventive practice, a cylindrical or prolate spheroidal marine hull has two congruent contra-rotative propellers coaxially situated at or near its axial ends. Each propeller has plural blades mechanically and/or flexibly attributed with changeability of blade pitch angles and blade flap angles. A blade-pitch control system adjusts the individual blade pitch angles of both propellers. The blade-pitch control system may be electronically and/or mechanically actuated, and is capable of: (i) cyclically adjusting the blade pitch angles of the two propellers so as to select two respective blade-tip-path planes, each characterized by a direction of thrust that is associated with the blade flap angles and is generally perpendicular to the blade-tip-path plane; (ii) collectively adjusting the blade pitch angles of the two propellers so as to select two respective magnitudes of thrust. The cyclic and collective blade commands, algorithmically coordinated, determine the direction, orientation, and speed of the hull.

Marine propulsion-and-control system implementing articulated variable-pitch propellers

A method has been found for assessing an aircraft approach to landing on a shipboard landing surface. The method includes a comparison of an identified aircraft performance with the mean or median of a baseline data set. The baseline data set is assembled from a multiplicity of actual approaches to landing data that are selected for relevance and then statistically evaluated. A high data recording rate captures the pilot's control inputs and allows evaluation of the pilot's manual efficiency of input to controls. The method is particularly useful to evaluate performance under conditions in which evaluation by human observation is limited or evaluation against guidelines produces less meaningful results.

Aircraft approach to landing analysis method

According to typical inventive practice, a baseline describing a statistical distribution is established for a set of historical occurrences of an event. Comparison is made between the baseline and at least one current occurrence of the same event. Any current occurrence that is anomalous vis-&#xe0;-vis the baseline is considered a possible leading indicator. According to some inventive embodiments of graphical presentation of such comparison, at least one graphical baseline comparative display component is rendered that includes a 'bar' (describing a historical statistical distribution with respect to a criterion pertaining to occurrence of an event) and a 'slider' (describing one or more current occurrences of the event). The bar includes at least one band representing a statistical mean range, and at least one band representing a statistical outlier range. Situation of the slider along the bar indicates whether and to what extent the current occurrence(s) is/are anomalous vis-&#xe0;-vis the baseline.

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Bethesda, MD, United States of America

Daniel P Everson