"DDAY" wrote in message
. net...
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.

Probably engine failure on the stroke. Possibly wrong weight setting on the
cat. The older catapults would use a given steam pressure to achieve a
particular end-speed for a particular gross weight. These would malfunction
on rare occasions. The newer cats use a rotary valve that allows full
pressure (600psi IIRC) for a particular duration and are just about fool
proof (unless its set for the wrong weight).

A fully-loaded A-6 didn't have very good single-engine fly away capability.
The "something" was probably all the underwing stores. Pilot pushed the
emergency jettison and the pylons were cleaned off.

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?

Pitching deck, poor cat shot timing, and heavy seas. The aircraft made it.
The aircrew needed fresh skivvies.

R / John