Regarding places to look for further information:
(1) Sikorsky has filed a related international application with like disclosure and claims as PCT/US08/76962, published on June 25, 2009.
- This application preserves the right to extend patent protection to most of the world outside the United States, potentially including Europe.
- International applications get a search done and search report published, the references identified will sometimes drive claims amendment. It would be worth watching.
It's a bit odd, but the search is being done by the Korean patent office. It would interesting to know if this choice was made for cost or with an eye toward facilitating the prosecution of future, related Asian filings.
(2) Sikorsky filed an information disclosure statement in the US application listing 36 US patents it believes relevant to the application. Each of these applications has a classfication, inventor(s), and likely lists other patents considered during their respective examination. These can also be relevant to this application. Pulling these references through google patent, reviewing them, and further searching the USPTO site by classification and inventor would be a way of coming up with a list of art of interest.
(3) Should Sikorsky file before the European patent office you can expect to get a good search with decent, European references. Such eventual supplemental European search would be years out, but worth watching for if you are truly interested in this technology.
Alternatively, you can watch the proscution history of this application out on the USPTO web site and see what the examiner comes up with - I would expect to see multiple 102 and 103 objections, as well as objections to the form of at least two claims due to typos in the application.
Personally, I like the style of the application. It appears to be authored by a practicioner of the 'less is more' school, and a good read due the amount of ground covered in an compartively compact package.
Cheers!