Jet or Rocket Assisted Take Off
Auxiliary rockets and/or jet engines can help a fully loaded aircraft to take off within the length of the runway. The rockets are usually one-time units that are jettisoned after takeoff. This practice was common in the 1950s and 60s, when the lower levels of thrust from military turbojets was inadequate for takeoff from shorter runways or with very heavy payloads. It is now seldom used.
Auxiliary jets and rockets have rarely been used on civil aircraft due to the risk of aircraft damage and loss of control if something were to go wrong during their use. Boeing produced a JATO-powered version of its popular Boeing 727 primarily for "hot and high" operations out of Mexico City Airport (MMMX) and La Paz, Bolivia. The boosters were located adjacent to the main landing gear at the wing root on each side of the aircraft.
Read more about this topic: Hot And High
Famous quotes containing the words jet, rocket and/or assisted:
“Gimme the Plaza, the jet and $150 million, too.”
—Headline, New York Post (Feb. 13, 1990)
“A rocket is an experiment; a star is an observation.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)
“To anticipate, not the sunrise and the dawn merely, but, if possible, Nature herself! How many mornings, summer and winter, before yet any neighbor was stirring about his business, have I been about mine! No doubt, many of my townsmen have met me returning from this enterprise, farmers starting for Boston in the twilight, or woodchoppers going to their work. It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but, doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)