JATO

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The first "rocket-assisted" take-off in the United States, a GALCIT booster fitted to an ERCO Ercoupe, at March Field, California, 1941

JATO (acronym for jet-assisted take-off) is a type of assisted take-off for helping overloaded aircraft into the air by providing additional thrust in the form of small rockets. The term JATO is used interchangeably with the (more specific) term RATO, for rocket-assisted take-off (or, in RAF parlance, RATOG, for rocket-assisted take-off gear).

Early experiments and World War II

In 1927 the

Soviet research and development laboratory Gas Dynamics Laboratory developed solid-propellant rockets to assist aircraft take-off and in 1931 the world's first successful use of rockets to assist take-off of aircraft were carried out on a U-1, the Soviet designation for a Avro 504 trainer, which achieved about one hundred successful assisted takeoffs.[1][2] Successful assisted takeoffs were also achieved on the Tupolev TB-1.[3] and Tupolev TB-3 Heavy Bombers.[1][4] The official test of the Tupolev TB-1 in 1933 shortened the takeoff by 77% when using the rockets.[1]

Early experiments using rockets to boost gliders into the air were conducted in Germany in the 1920s (Lippisch Ente), and later both the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe introduced such systems in World War II.[5] The British system used fairly large solid fuel rockets to shoot planes (typically the Hawker Hurricane) off a small ramp fitted to the fronts of merchant ships, known in service as Catapult armed merchantmen (or CAM Ships), in order to provide some cover against German maritime patrol planes. After firing, the rocket was released from the back of the plane to fall into the water and sink. The task done, the pilot would fly to friendly territory if possible or parachute from the plane, hopefully to be picked up by one of the escort vessels. Over two years the system was only employed nine times to attack German aircraft with eight kills recorded for the loss of a single pilot.

Arado 234 Blitz fitted with Starthilfe
RATO units
Starthilfe RATO (left) on the starboard wing of Arado Ar 234 B-2 at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.
The Starthilfe RATO unit

The

Bachem Ba 349 VTO rocket interceptor design in 1945, for its vertical launch needs. The strictly experimental, HWK 109-501 Starthilfe RATO system used a similar bi-propellant "hot" motor to that on the Me 163B Komet rocket fighter, adding a 20 kg mass of a combination of B-stoff hydrazine, mixed with "Br-stoff" (ligroin hydrocarbon distillate) for a main "fuel" to the T-Stoff monopropellant still destabilized with the Z-Stoff permanganate for ignition as the oxidizer, tripling the 109-500's thrust figure of 4.95 kN (at 14.71 kN/1,500 kgf) with a burn of 30 second duration. Due to the "hot" system's similar risks demanding similar special fueling and handling procedures to that of the Komet's 509A rocket motor, the 109-501 seems to have remained a strictly experimental design, only being used for the test flights of the Junkers Ju 287 V1 prototype jet bomber.[7]

In early 1939, the

Jack Parsons, Frank Malina, Edward Forman and Apollo M. O. Smith) at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) to research rocket-assisted take-off of aircraft. This JATO research was the first rocket research to receive financial assistance from the U.S. government since World War I when Robert H. Goddard had an Army contract to develop solid fuel rocket weapons.[8][9][10]
In late 1941 von Kármán and his team attached several 50-pound thrust, solid fuel Aerojet JATOs to a light Ercoupe plane, and Army Captain Homer Boushey took off on test runs. On the last run they removed the propeller, attached six JATO units under the wings, and Boushey was thrust into the air for a short flight, the first American to fly by rocket power only. Both armed services used solid fuel JATO during the war.[10]: 329 

Post WWII

LC-130
cargo plane RATO takeoff from snow

After World War II JATO was often used to overcome the poor thrust of early jet engines at low speeds or for assisting heavily loaded aircraft to take off. For example, the propeller engined Avro Shackleton, when heavily laden with fuel for long maritime surveillance flights, relied on Armstrong Siddeley Viper turbojets for takeoff.

The world's first

de Havilland DH 106 Comet, included a design provision to carry two hydrogen peroxide–powered de Havilland Sprite booster rockets intended to be installed for "hot and high" conditions from airports such as Khartoum and Nairobi.[11][12] These were tested on thirty flights, but the de Havilland Ghost jet engines alone were considered powerful enough and some airlines concluded that rocket motors were impractical.[13] Nevertheless, Sprite fittings were retained on production Comet 1s but were rendered unnecessary with subsequent engine upgrades.[14]

In the late 1950s,

F-104 were also used for zero-length launch experiments, with similarly powerful drop-away booster units to the Soviets' SM-30 experiments.[15]

Also in the 1950s the JATO Junior was an attempt by Aerojet Engineering to introduce smaller JATO units to small commercial aircraft, but was blocked by the U.S. Navy Bureau of Aeronautics. Aerojet claimed that the smaller JATO bottle, delivering 250 pounds of thrust for 12 seconds could help a light private plane, that normally requires almost 900 ft (270 m) of runway to clear a 50 ft (15 m) high obstacle, could do the same with 300 ft (91 m) of runway with a JATO Jr unit.[16] JATO Junior bottles mounted to the engine nacelles were briefly offered as a factory option on the Beechcraft Twin Bonanza; they were promoted not as a takeoff aid, but rather as a means to extend glide distance during a forced landing in unfavorable terrain. However, it is not known whether the bottles were ever actually installed on a production Twin Bonanza or used in any instance other than factory test flights.[17]

The Boeing 727 had provision for Aerojet JATO assist for use in "hot and high" conditions, particularly at Mexico City and La Paz.[18][19] A JATO option was available for the Fairchild Swearingen Metroliner to increase take-off weight while maintaining one-engine inoperative climb requirements.[citation needed]

In late 1980 the United States military operation plan

C-130
cargo planes modified with rocket engines to enable a very short take off and landing. The plan was canceled after an accident occurred during a test landing when the forward-facing JATO units designed to slow the aircraft fired before the downward-facing units (designed to cushion the landing) did, causing the aircraft to crash-land.

JATO became largely unnecessary as the take-off thrust of jet engines improved and is now rarely used even when operating heavily laden from short runways or in "hot and high" conditions.[citation needed] It is occasionally used in exceptional circumstances, on specially equipped, mostly military, aircraft.[20]

Urban legend

The JATO Rocket Car is an urban legend that relates the story of a car equipped with JATO units that is later found smashed into a mountainside. This story is often given as an example of a Darwin Award; it appears to be apocryphal, with no basis in fact.[21]

The legend has been examined several times on the Discovery Channel show MythBusters. For the first attempt, in a 2003 pilot episode, the crew replicated the scene and the thrust of the JATO with some commercially available amateur rocket motors. The car did go very fast, outrunning the chase helicopter, but nowhere near the 300 mph (500 km/h) reported in the original story, and failed to become airborne. The myth was revisited in 2007, using a different configuration of rockets in an attempt to make the car fly; it exploded before reaching the end of its launch ramp. The myth was again revisited in 2013 in the 1st episode of Mythbusters Season 12, as a celebration of their 10th year on the air.

A JATO-equipped 1958 Dodge Coronet car on the El Mirage dry lake was used for a TV advertisement to demonstrate the power of their "total contact" brakes. This was broadcast during The Lawrence Welk Show in the late 1950s. [22]

Gallery

  • The US Navy's Blue Angels C-130 Hercules "Fat Albert" using JATO during takeoff
    The US Navy's
    C-130 Hercules
    "Fat Albert" using JATO during takeoff
  • BQM-74E Chukar target drone using JATO
    BQM-74E Chukar
    target drone using JATO
  • Swiss Air Force's Dassault Mirage IIIs in Payerne
  • BS.605 as used by the Buccaneer S.50
    BS.605 as used by the Buccaneer S.50
  • A RATO bottle
    A RATO bottle
  • A Lockheed P-2 Neptune launches from the aircraft carrier USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42), 2 July 1951.
    A
    USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CV-42)
    , 2 July 1951.
  • A rocket-assisted Boeing B-47B takeoff.
    A rocket-assisted
    Boeing B-47
    B takeoff.
  • A Grumman TBF torpedo bomber taking off with the aid of 330 horsepower (250 kW) jet-assisted unit in about half the normal run.
    A
    Grumman TBF
    torpedo bomber taking off with the aid of 330 horsepower (250 kW) jet-assisted unit in about half the normal run.
  • F-104G with an experimental ZELL rocket booster at Gatow.
    F-104G with an experimental ZELL rocket booster at Gatow.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Glushko, Valentin (1 January 1973). Developments of Rocketry and Space Technology in the USSR. Novosti Press Pub. House. p. 7.
  2. ^ У-1 на сайте airwar.ru — «Уголок неба»
  3. ^ Zak, Anatoly. "Gas Dynamics Laboratory". Russian Space Web. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  4. ^ Chertok, Boris (31 January 2005). Rockets and People (Volume 1 ed.). National Aeronautics and Space Administration. pp. 164–165. Retrieved 29 May 2022.
  5. ^ "For operations from small flight decks with heavy loads, rocket-assisted take-offs were necessary." http://uboat.net/allies/aircraft/swordfish.htm
  6. ^ Warsitz, Lutz: The First Jet Pilot - The Story of German Test Pilot Erich Warsitz (p. 45), Pen and Sword Books Ltd., England, 2009 Archived 2 December 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ Krakow Polish Aviation Museum's page on the HWK 109-501 Starthilfe RATO pod
  8. ^ Malina, Frank J. (1967). "Memoir on the GALCIT Rocket Research Project". l'Observatoire Leonardo pour les Arts et les Techno-Sciences. Archived from the original on 5 February 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2008.
  9. ^ "Orders of Magnitude — A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915-1990, Ch. 2". NASA. 1989.
  10. ^ a b Lehman, Milton (1988). Robert H. Goddard. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 91–5.
  11. ^ Cookman, Aubery O. Jr. "Commute by Jet". Popular Mechanics, 93(4), April 1950, pp. 149–152.
  12. ^ Francis 1950, pp. 98–102.
  13. ^ Birtles 1970, p. 125.
  14. ^ Gunn 1987, p. 269.
  15. ^ Goebel, Greg (1 May 2012). "The Zero-Length Launch Fighter". Greg Goebel / In The Public Domain. Archived from the original on 22 April 2012.
  16. ^ "'Baby' Jet Unit Boosts Light Plane into Air". Popular Mechanics, February 1950, p. 163.
  17. ^ Caldwell, Kris (December 2022). "Beech D50C Twin Bonanza". EAA Sport Aviation. Oshkosh, Wisconsin: Experimental Aircraft Association. pp. 34–36. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  18. ^ "Type Certification Data 727-200 Series". Boeing-727.com. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
  19. ^ "Tails Through Time: The Boeing 727 JATO Option". Archived from the original on 1 December 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2017.
  20. ^ "Booster Kick Off Civilian Planes". Popular Science, June 1955, p. 150.
  21. ^ "Carmageddon". snopes.com.
  22. YouTube
    , segment begins at 30:00

External links

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