The sea can be a perilous place. Unpredictable, cruel, and relentless. But the world must go on, and for ship operations, sometimes you need to get a rope across. For example, resupplying a ship with fuel or fresh water can be done offshore, as long as you can get the pipe from the depot to the vessel. Sometimes one ship has to tow another ship that is disabled.

Currently, this perilous task is done with small boats, but this is not always without incidents. Rough waters or the tow line getting snagged underneath the small boat can make a bad day worse. Flying the tow line with a helicopter or plane is risky because the line can get snagged on trees or rocks, causing the aircraft to crash.

Textron Innovations have come up with a solution: a drone capable of VTOL and forward flight, equipped with a spool for a tow line. It takes off vertically, flies to the ship, and detaches the tow line. Then, it returns home.

In addition, the spool is equipped with an array of sensors that communicate with the aircraft, “initiating the aircraft response in response to the tow line tension parameter may include reducing a speed of the aircraft in response to the tow line tension parameter exceeding a speed reaction threshold.” The information from the spool sensors “may include changing a flight orientation of the aircraft from a forward flight orientation to a VTOL orientation in response to the tow line tension parameter exceeding an orientation reaction threshold.”

Claim 1: “A tailsitter aircraft for deploying a tow line having a tow line tension, the tailsitter aircraft comprising: an airframe including first and second wings with first and second pylons extending therebetween; a thrust array attached to the airframe, the thrust array including a plurality of propulsion assemblies configured to transition the airframe between a forward flight orientation having wing-borne lift and a VTOL orientation having thrust-borne lift; an attenuation spool coupled to the airframe; an attenuation cable having a first end coupled to the attenuation spool and a second end coupled to the tow line, the attenuation cable at least partially wound around the attenuation spool; a spool sensor configured to detect movement of the attenuation spool; and a flight control system implementing a tow line tension monitoring module in communication with the spool sensor to determine a tow line tension parameter and a tow line tension reaction module configured to initiate an aircraft response based on the tow line tension parameter.”

Title: “Tow Line Tension Management Systems For Aircraft”

US Patent Application No: 20240051661

Filed (US Reg.):  2022-08-10

Published: 2024-02-15

Applicant: Textron Innovations Inc.