I was watching a documentary called "Top Gun" on the Military Channel.

They had some footage of some cat launches gone wrong. In one an A-6 took
off the waist catapult of a carrier and started losing altitude almost
immediately. Then something really big fell off the plane, it started to
roll, and the pilots ejected at very low altitude.

Any idea what happened there? I remember hearing about some aircraft launch
where the fuel in an external tank acted like a ram and caused some heavy
damage, but I'm not sure if these are the same events.

In another shot, a large prop plane, possibly an S-2F, took off the waist
catapult of a smaller Essex class carrier and immediately slammed into a
wave. Again, does anybody have any details?





D