Fluid sprinkling – spraying – and diffusing – With mobile tank-type supply means – Aircraft carried
Patent
1994-09-07
1996-03-26
Kashnikow, Andres
Fluid sprinkling, spraying, and diffusing
With mobile tank-type supply means
Aircraft carried
244136, B64D 118
Patent
active
055013988
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a device for liquid and solid delivery from crop spraying aircraft.
A discharge device is known from U.S. application Ser. No. 1,722,467 for use in discharging treatment substance (e.g.. liquid) on to a crop or ground from a crop spraying aircraft, the device being adapted for mounting on an aircraft, said device comprising a conduit member providing an air passage, and supply means for supplying treatment substance to said air passage, said passage including an inlet portion to receive air due to forward movement of the aircraft, and an outlet portion for directing a downward discharge of said air together with said treatment substance. FR-A-183961 shows a further such discharge device: in this case, however, the supply means was strictly separate from the device, and required an air flow to carry the material into the air passage of the device. This is inefficient.
A particular problem of prior discharge devices for treatment material for use with aircraft, and especially present in the device of U.S. application Ser. No. 1,722,467, was that the placement of the treatment material discharged from the device could be very inaccurate. This problem arose from the way in which the air passage and discharge of the device were arranged in these prior devices. It is the principal object of the present invention to overcome the above problems.
The present invention provides for an improved method of directing and delivering fertilizer, herbicides, irrigation water and other toxic or nontoxic chemical sprays from an inflight aircraft crop spraying system such that the residual velocity of the liquid droplets, atomized and vapors and solids is sensibly downwards at high velocities on leaving the slipstream disturbance area of the spraying aircraft and does not have any significant horizontal component of velocity due to the aerodynamic turbulence of the propulsion system of the aircraft.
It is also a feature of this invention that the droplets and/or solid particles may be accelerated to subsonic, sonic or supersonic velocities using a minor portion of the energy of forward motion of the aircraft at normal flying speeds to this effect. Supersonic delivery velocity will be provided where the height of the flight path above the crops and the droplet size precludes leaf damage due to impact of the droplets, etc.
According to the present invention there is provided a discharge device for use in discharging treatment substance (e.g., liquid) onto a crop or ground from a crop spraying aircraft, the device being adapted for mounting on an aircraft, said device comprising a conduit member providing an air passage, and supply means for supplying treatment substance to said air passage, said passage including an inlet portion to receive air due to forward movement of the aircraft, and an outlet portion set at an angle relative to said inlet portion for directing a downward discharge of said air together with said treatment substance.
Essentially, the apparatus according to the invention is one or a number of such devices suspended from the wings or spray boom of an aircraft and preferably comprises a bell form inlet mouth leading to said inlet portion of the air passage, an elbow being present between the inlet and outlet portions. There is provided a smooth change of direction in the orifice device such that the included angle between the direction of the bell mouth and the exit lies normally between 90.degree. and 45.degree.. The bell mouth inlet will be sensibly aligned in the direction of the aircraft flight while the exit from the device will be usually, but not necessarily exclusively, downwards and inclined forward of the vertical by an angle variable according to the aircraft velocity and the droplet velocity such that the resultant absolute velocity of the droplets can be substantially vertically downwards.
The air passage can be of convergent/divergent form including a throat.
The design of the orifice convergence, throat and divergence follows normal practice for such orifices, wh
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patent: 5148989 (1992-09-01), Skinner
Custom Farm Service of Arizona
Kashnikow Andres
Maxwell Davidson Ltd.
Morris Lesley D.
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