Just a quick military aircraft question…does anyone happen to know if an A-10 “Warthog” is able to use a JATO rocket for takeoffs?
I mean, for day-to-day operations, this probably isn’t even an issue. But the military has been known to test out crazier things.
Former USAF pilot, non A-10 type.
I’m pretty sure JATO (RATO really) disappeared in the 1960s, except possibly for some real special purpose uses like C-130 resupply in Antarctica. The A-10 dates from the late 70s / early 80s.
As well, the typical JATO installation was intended to get really big airplanes up to speed. For something as small as an A-10, the standard JATO packs would have been too big.
So all in all, I’d be amazed to hear that they every messed with that particular combination. I know I never heard about it.
I know that’s just anecdote & speculation, but it’s all I have to offer. My Google-fu was unable to find anything about the decomissioning of JATO, but I also haven’t been able to find any references to use of it with dates much after 1972 in Viet Nam
The Blue Angels use JATO on their C-130 (aka Fat Albert) for demonstration purposes. Other than that I have no idea, but it does suggest that it is still being used because limited manufacture of the JATO rockets for that purpose only would be prohibitively expensive.
Just to continue the hijack, there was a plan in 1980 to rescue the US hostages held in Tehran using a JATO assisted C130 (this was after plan I didn’t go too well)
Psst, Tapioca, that’s not a hijack. See the first link in the OP.