B-47 RATO!!

Robbie Stuart · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 8:11 pm

USAF PHOTO

PHOTO DESCRIPTION;* Boeing B-47B rocket-assisted take off on April 15, 1954
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If My Backside Was On Fire Like That, I Too Would Go Like He11 :shock:

Pat Carry · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 9:15 pm

Now that is a great photo!

bluehawk15 · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:04 pm

Looks like a bunch of B-36's on the ramp in the background. Any idea as to where it was taken?

tom d. friedman · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:12 pm

excellent pic. send it to the tree hugging going greenie near you!! :mrgreen:

Jerry O'Neill · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:22 pm

Looks like March AFB to me.
Jerry

SPANNERmkV · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:36 pm

Great fun!

My Dad flew B47s until he retired.

Because the RATOS were for overloaded planes he said if you saw one of them shooting past your airplane you were done for.

I was going through some of his memorabilia lately and came across the Pilot's Manual for the B47.

bluehawk15 · **Posted:** Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:41 pm

Spanner, you mean if you saw one of the RATO bottles shooting past you? That would be scary enough, even without knowing you were about to stop flying!

Sorry the weather was too bad for the Rose to make it to Hobby. We'll try again!

Steve Nelson · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 12:07 am

Now that's a carbon footprint!

Awsome pic..too bad we'll never get to see Fat Albert to a JATO takeoff again.

SN

The Inspector · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 2:46 am

.....and on the early B-47's, they jettisoned the RATO pack after it burned out because they were externally mounted....'Hey Mom, whats that in the roof of the garage?'

sdennison · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:17 am

SPANNERmkV wrote:

Great fun!

My Dad flew B47s until he retired.

Because the RATOS were for overloaded planes he said if you saw one of them shooting past your airplane you were done for.

I was going through some of his memorabilia lately and came across the Pilot's Manual for the B47.

Mine did as well. Last stationed at Forbes. While we were at Chennault there was an accident where the RATO/JATO's ignited on the ramp. The navigator, our neighbor had just climbed inside. The pilot was on the ladder climbing into the cockpit. He was thrown and run over and killed. Jim was caught inside the inferno that had been propelled to some point from the ramp. Luckily, it hit no other planes that I recall.

Jim lived but spent a year or more at San Antonio's burn center getting put back into some sort of form. It was really sad.

Spanner, how big is that manual? Too big to copy, I'd guess.

Tim Adams · **Joined:** Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:17 pm **Posts:** 301

Great shot, my Dad was a mechanic on the B-47's in the early 60's.

Pogmusic · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 2:50 pm

RATO/JATO is awesome. I had a friend who flew F-80s in Korea as a follow on to being a Mosquito (AT-6) pilot. He said the F-84s were so overloaded and required so much runway they always used JATO. They would all jettison them at the same point. Every couple of days, some detail had to go out and bulldoze a path through the discarded JATO so the aircraft taking off wouldn't hit them!!!

Pogo · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 7:43 pm

What is the deal with Fat Albert, anyway? I've been hearing it won't be doing any more JATO takeoffs - why dat? Man, sure glad I got to catch it in the act at WOH.

Also, wonder if there's an easy primer on JATO and RATO and all, would kinda like to learn a little more. I always wondered about JATO especially .... a bunch of little JET engines?? It's a lot easier to picture a bunch of overgrown bottle rockets strapped to the side of an airplane.

hercules130 · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:19 pm

Pogo wrote:

What is the deal with Fat Albert, anyway? I've been hearing it won't be doing any more JATO takeoffs - why dat? Man, sure glad I got to catch it in the act at WOH.

Also, wonder if there's an easy primer on JATO and RATO and all, would kinda like to learn a little more. I always wondered about JATO especially .... a bunch of little JET engines?? It's a lot easier to picture a bunch of overgrown bottle rockets strapped to the side of an airplane.

They are elect. primed, via a squip. I think the bottles were called RATO on a Monday and JATO on a Tuesday same thing, both ROCKET engines working via JET reaction.

I was able to check out Fat Albert's "last" JATO take off in Pensacola, what a treat.

Gary

hercules130 · **Posted:** Wed Nov 25, 2009 9:20 pm

bluehawk15 wrote:

Looks like a bunch of B-36's on the ramp in the background. Any idea as to where it was taken?

Biggs?

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