Fat Albert

[rocketman47]

Saw the Blues a couple of weekends ago. They did their usual short field demo with their C-130. Saw It on the first day with the RATO bottles. The second day, they did the same demo, except for some reason the rockets did not fire(as advertised by the announcer) The Herc's rate of climb and climb angle were just as spectacular!
Kind of makes me wonder if the bottles are more of a crowd-pleaser, than a functional part of the aircraft???

Randy

[eflightray]

RAL? Rocket Assisted Landing that went wrong.

C130 super stall landing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjUKQCMnX10)

[eflightray]

Or a much nicer video - Large model of a C130 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvCqMSRWbpY)

[Trisquire]

Saw the Blues a couple of weekends ago. They did their usual short field demo with their C-130. Saw It on the first day with the RATO bottles. The second day, they did the same demo, except for some reason the rockets did not fire(as advertised by the announcer) The Herc's rate of climb and climb angle were just as spectacular!
Kind of makes me wonder if the bottles are more of a crowd-pleaser, than a functional part of the aircraft???

RandyInteresting. Maybe they shoot blanks at the shows. Makes you wonder what the climb angle would be if they really used them.

Tom

[Jon Shaw]

The c-130's short field landing and takeoff capabilities are very impressive. The idea behind the "RATO or JATO" bottles are that under heavy load conditions they would provide an extra margin of saftey. The Herc has been continually upgraded over the years lessening the need for such assistance. The military stopped buying the bottles many years ago, the remaining supply was turned over the Blue Angels for use at airshows. When hurricane(?) hit Pensacola a few years ago most of the stockpile was destroyed. They are now rationing the remaining ones to one demo per airshow weekend until they run out. The last estimate I heard was that there are less than 100 still around. :mad:

[eflightray]

What!, no more strapping a JATO to a car and splatting yourself all over a cliff face somewhere for fun?
Shame.

Now where did I put that spare J57 engine..........