Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!amdahl!amdcad!military
From: leem@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Lee Mellinger)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: RATO and JATO
Message-ID: <26790@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 16 Aug 89 06:16:58 GMT
References: <26745@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.
Lines: 32
Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com



From: leem@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Lee Mellinger)

In article <26745@amdcad.AMD.COM> mmm@cup.portal.com writes:
:In AIR POWER: KEY TO SURVIVAL by Alexanader de Seversky, there's a picture
:of a B-47 taking off with JATO boosters (small jets strapped to the plane
:for extra power, which drop off after take-off, although these boosters
:look more like RATO, which are rockets).
:
:I'm wondering whether RATO or JATO was purely experimental, or whether it
:was ever a deployed system?  Are any RATO or JATO system currently in use
:or under experimentation?

JATO and RATO are one and the same thing, small solid propellant
rockets that can be strapped to aircraft to shorten the takeoff roll
or allow a grater takeoff weight.  They were originally developed by
JPL for the US Army Air Corps during WWII.  Small jet engines were
never used only rockets.  JATO was and is still some times used by the
military.  B-47's routinely used them and, I believe, they are still
used on C-130's in Antarctica.

Lee

"I'm the NRA"

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin 1759

|Lee F. Mellinger                 Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA
|4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109 818/393-0516  FTS 977-0516      
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