Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm Gmbh

Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm Gesellschaft MIT Beschrankter Haftung

Werner Schnabele

Walter Kranz

Ulrich Rieger

Jack Buckley

Paul Von Malottki

A missile with adjustable flight controls capable of altering the missile's flight path is disclosed. The missile comprises an electric generator and control electronics. The electric generator is used in this invention both to provide electrical power to the control electronics and to regulate the flight controls. A mechanical connection is created between the generators rotor and the flight controls. The generator is electrically coupled to the control electronics through an electrically variable load. The control electronics alters the load which varies the rotational speed of the generator. This in turn affects the flight controls and the flight path is altered accordingly. The invention is small and compact, allowing its use in small missiles such as mortar or artillery shells.

Missile with adjustable flying controls

The invention relates to a drone-type missile for combatting ground targets from the ground, particularly for the use against targets which emit electromagnetic rays, such as radar stations; with built-in target-seeking head, guidance system, self-propulsion and take-off assist, preferably a booster rocket.

Drone-type missile

An apparatus for braking a free piston which is driven at a high acceleran within a tube and, particularly, in a recoilless firearm, comprises a tube which has a first portion of a first diameter and a second portion of a second diameter greater than the first portion with a transition portion therebetween. A free piston is freely movable in the first portion and it has substantially the same diameter as the first portion. A braking sleeve is secured to the interior wall of the tube in the second portion thereof and it has an edge facing the piston which is beveled inwardly to a knife edge. A deformation ring is carried in the second portion between the braking sleeve and the piston and the piston carries an expanding member which moves outwardly when the piston is moved from the first portion through the transition portion to the second portion to contact the deformation ring and to force it against the edge of the braking sleeve so as to deform the braking sleeve starting from its edge which faces the piston radially inwardly to effect the braking of the piston. In one embodiment, the expanding member comprises a ring carried on the piston which rides in a groove of the piston and which is urged outwardly by gases which propel the piston and which communicate with the groove to a passage defined in the rear face of the piston. In another embodiment, the expanding member includes a ring carried on the opposite end of the piston from the end exposed to the propelling gases with a sleeve having a plurality of longitudinal slits which permit the sleeve to be deflected downwardly by the first portion of the tube in which the piston is movable, but which may move outwardly when the piston moves through the transition zone to the second portion so as to contact a deformation ring which is urged by the expanding member to deform the braking sleeve.

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Wolfratshausen, Germany

Werner Schnabele