Releasable locking mechanism

摘要

A plurality of arms extend outwardly from an accessory structure and are adapted to engage slots in a base structure to which the accessory structure is to be mounted. The arms are normally biased to a position at which they are freely insertable an removable from the slots in the base structure, and movable to a position at which the arms are locked in the slots in response to forcedly maintaining the arms at a spaced apart distance greater than the distance of which the arms are disposed in the normally biased position. The arms are returned to their normally biased position in response to depressing an actuator mounted in the accessory structure, and moved to the spaced apart locking position in response to releasing the actuator. The problems of fatigue failure, wear, breakage and decrease of positive retention between accessory and base structures using current releasable locking mechanisms is overcome.