Ships – Mother ship – floating landing platform – and harbor – Aircraft
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-12
2001-05-15
Avila, Stephen (Department: 3617)
Ships
Mother ship, floating landing platform, and harbor
Aircraft
C114S266000, C244S11000H
Reexamination Certificate
active
06230643
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to structure of large size sea surface vehicles, which include aircraft carrier, mobile sea surface airport, tank group and other heavy weapon group transport/landing ship and sea surface solar energy collection platform. The present invention also relates to airplane takeoff/landing assistant apparatus. Here and in the following, sea means the same water body as what ocean means.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Study of the issues of limitations of current aircraft carriers and across sea mobility of tank group generated the present invention.
The first issue is about limitations of current aircraft carriers.
Mobile sea surface airports will be widely used in the future, along with predictable tremendous increase of human activity on sea surface in the future, which covers about seventy percent of the earth's surface. Today's aircraft carriers are not suitable for the main form of future mobile sea surface airports because of the following restrictions.
1. The structures and shapes of today's aircraft carriers are only suited for specifically designed airplanes. Most of today's airplanes that include commercial airplanes, military airplanes without specific apparatus and, specifically, large size airplanes can not use today's aircraft carriers.
2. The structures and shapes of today's aircraft carriers are hardly changeable after the aircraft carriers are built. New designs of the future airplanes that would be carried by aircraft carriers are subject to this disadvantageous restriction.
3. The structures and shapes of today's aircraft carriers require that the aircraft carriers must be built at very limited locations. This limitation is a very significant obstacle for competition and mass production.
4. The structures and shapes of today's aircraft carriers make maintenance and repair of these aircraft carriers complicated and expensive.
The second issue is about across sea mobility of tank group, including realization of striking power of heavy ground weapons on sea surface.
A group of tanks are very powerful in today's ground wars. However, today's ships that carry these tanks across sea generate the following concerns.
1. A today's ship that can transport a large number of tanks across sea depends on specific ports to load and unload these tanks. It lacks capacity of direct amphibious landing. A today's landing ship lacks capability of carrying a large number of tanks across sea. The lack of capacity of quick delivery of large-scale tank group from any seashore point to any seashore point across sea is a significant restriction on the use of large-scale tank group in the missions across sea.
2. A today's ship that can transport a large number of tanks across sea lacks the survivability that can match the survivability of the tank group on ground when the ship is under attack on sea surface. A few powerful missiles or bombs could sink the ship. Vulnerableness of the ship makes high survivability of the tank group on ground meaningless on sea surface.
3. A today's ship that can transport a large number of tanks across sea significantly restrains realization of fighting capability of these tanks on sea surface. In the ship, a tank is processed as a transported unit instead of a fighting unit. The valuable striking power of the tank group is wasted on sea surface.
The concerns above relate to very different fields. A common solution for all the concerns above has not been found in publication. Searching a common solution of all the concerns in the above two issues generated the following inventions.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention includes two parts. The first part is a cell-combined large size sea surface vehicle, which could be applied to aircraft carrier, mobile sea surface airport, tank group and other heavy weapon group transport/landing ship and sea surface solar energy collection platform. The second part is an aircraft takeoff/landing platform, which is an important part of a complete invention when just mentioned sea surface vehicle functions as an aircraft carrier or a mobile sea surface airport. The aircraft takeoff/landing platform can also be applied in land.
The present invented cell-combined large size sea surface vehicle is described as the following. The sea surface vehicle comprises a large number of cells. These cells are distributed along two horizontal dimensions on sea surface. Buoyancy is provided by the cells. These cells are connected to form the sea surface vehicle. Elasticity and flexibility are provided by the connection parts of the cells to prevent destructive stress. The elasticity and the flexibility can be restrained by rigid parts when rigidity is required. One or more engines can be installed inside or on the surface of any of the cells. Each engine is controlled by a computer that is organized in an Internet-like computer network. The assembly of the sea surface vehicle could be conducted on any sea surface. Because the structure of the sea surface vehicle is large and flat, it is also called a sea surface mobile platform.
The cell-combined large size sea surface vehicle or sea surface mobile platform shows the following especially useful characteristics.
First, its structure is combinative and unlimitedly scalable. Its surface area and load capacity could be easily added and reduced and its shape could be easily changed to meet special requirement simply by adjusting cells. Even the sea surface vehicles could be combined together to form a larger sea surface vehicle. The combination of the sea surface vehicles could easily create a super large sea surface vehicle. Its repair could be extremely quick by just changing damaged cells. Its production could be highly simple, rapid and economic because the cells could be manufactured anywhere in land and the assembly could be conducted on any sea surface.
Second, its structure is large and flat. Because the large quantity of the cells is distributed along two horizontal dimensions on sea surface, the sea surface vehicle could provide a large and flat platform. The unlimited scalability of the platform allows the platform to be large enough for all types of current and future airplanes to take off and land. The sea surface vehicle therefore could serve as a general-purpose aircraft carrier or mobile sea surface airport. The sea surface vehicle is naturally a sea surface airport for a large number of helicopters. Because the platform is large and flat, a large-scale tank group or other large-scale heavy weapon group could be deployed and maneuvered on the platform. Every tank or other heavy weapon on the platform could fully make use of its firing power on sea surface. Carrying a large number and a large variety of heavy weapons, the sea surface vehicle could function as a powerful comprehensive sea battle platform. Using the sea surface vehicle, army that traditionally fights on land can become a powerful battle force on sea surface.
Third, its survivability is extremely high. Each of the large number of the cells provides part of total buoyancy and the total buoyancy is the sum of the buoyancy of each individual cell. The cell could be made of light materials so that the buoyancy of each cell could be greater than its gravity in all the circumstances. The buoyancy of the sea surface vehicle could be made greater than its gravity in all circumstances. The combinative, large and flat structure and the large number of engines controlled by an Internet-like computer network make the survivability of the sea surface vehicle extremely high. A few explosive damages can not impact the function of the sea surface vehicle significantly.
Fourth, its draught is very shallow. The cells that provide floating forces are distributed along two horizontal dimensions on sea surface. The draught is basically less than the height of the cell, which could be very small. A tank group or other heavy weapon group therefore can quickly move on to the sea surface vehicle from land, be transported to
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