...
Didn't realise EADS / AirBus was in the business of trying to patent silly things?
Neither did I, but it is hard to find another way to describe it.
A simple experiment based on my interpretation of the legalese:
-Take a hammer in your left hand, and a sealed tube with a rod sticking out connected to an interior piston.
-Hit the rod with the hammer to provide a large impulse.
-The momentum transfers through the compressing air to the tube.
-You have to apply force with your right hand against the direction of the initial piston motion, totaling more impulse (Force * time) than the initial imparted impulse, to reverse the direction of the piston.
-You then apply some force the other way when the piston hits its starting point (I assume it has a stopper there, so it doesn't oscillate further. This balances the extra impulse that had reversed the motion of the piston.
Their claim is that the 3rd bullet doesn't happen, the momentum just magically disappears so if you instead first set down the tube on a low friction surface before hitting the rod with the hammer, the tube would not move. This is trivially wrong, as it does not match reality at all.