If I am remembering right the A-6 got a cold cat and the pilot jettisoned
the centerline droptank trying to gain alt.

"spamno" wrote in message
news:MPQdg.127$xO5.54@trnddc03...

"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.

Any idea what happened there?

Without seeing it I can only speculate; cold cat? Wrong aircraft weight
dialed in? FODed a motor? Control problem?

As far as the "something really big fell off the plane" was that the
canopy?
Drop tanks? Turtleback?




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.

That's why drop tanks are either completely full or completely empty. They
*should be* full on take off and the aircrew *always* checks fuel quantity
to be sure.