JATO - B-47 Jato 02.jpg (1/1)

[Mitchell Holman]

[Lynn]

WOW! Those shots with the "horsecollar" (external) JATO and
water/alcohol injection
were obviously taken with a lightweight fuel load, no?
I was awestruck during "bomber stream" launchs, after dusk at Davis
Monthan AFB. The
max gross weight of a fully loaded "E" model was many thousand pounds over
design max gross
take-off weight. After the first one or two had left a heavy black
smokescreen on the runway,
one could watch the next one thunder along, and see the wing tip navigation
lights rise well
up above the runway, while the tail position light maintained it's altitude
all the way down the
runway. (B-47 wings flew higher than the fuselage when at or near max gross
weight)
I think complete emptying (and lightening) of the water/alcohol tanks
(de-ionized water in warm weather)
kept them from flying down mainstreet of Nogales, Mexico.
I was told, and I think it must have be true, that that aircraft, so
configured, would not
lift off in the runway length available, during a hot day, at Davis Monthan
AFB. The reason that practice
"bomber streams" were exercised AFTER the heat of the day.
Thanks for the pics, those were the days, no?

Old Chief Lynn

[Richard Brooks[_2_]]

Great pictures!

What I have not seen are the JATO take-offs with a much sharper angle
of attack as I'd witnessed at the then USAF Brize Norton, when I was a
youngster.

As soon as we kids saw that silver shark's fin passing Easterly
between the trees parallel to Milestone Road in Carterton (accompanied
by the tell-tale goddamn awful screeching noise) we all ran down to
the Westerly end of the runway and clung on to the chain link fencing,
too scared to go further West where the fencing kinked in and much
closer to the runway, just in case!

The angles of attack seemed much closer to the Vulcan's, one which
indicentally passed through USAF Brize Norton one day, promptly nosed
up and vanished into the cloud bank without fuss. Whether with the
B47 that was a noise abatement thing I don't know (they never did it
after about 6pm until morning but practiced 'circuits and bumps'
solidly through the night) but we did joke that at the usual shallower
angle of take-off, it was possible to poke the aircraft with a stick
even by the time it had passed over Upper Heyford.


Richard.

[Richard Brooks[_2_]]

said the following on 08/02/2009 17:11:
> I was one of those with the B-47 at RAF Brize Norton from the 68 BW at Lake
> Charles, LA, in winter 1957-8 and then in following years, we spent our
> rotations not too far away at RAF Fairford.

Militaryvideos.com had produced a DVD with wonderful sections on the
B-47s at Brize, which must have been in the early years as the old
gate in Carterton was nothing but a workman's hut with no barrier.


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I've just picked up a DVD from