On Sat, 27 May 2006 04:30:42 GMT, "DDAY"
wrote:

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?
The video you are referring to ( I believe) was the USS Ticonderoga.
In the video, you should be able to clearly see the "14" on the pointy
end. The squadron was VS-38 out of North Island. And it was not a
cat shot. As others have mentioned, no angle deck cats on Essex
class. The S-2 in question was not shot off the cat - it was a deck
run from the aft part of flight deck. The aircraft was partially
filled with salt water but the R1820's just kept on chuggin'.
Aircraft was put in the hanger bay for maintainers to dry out, which
was only partially successful. Corrosion set in (duh!!!) and the A/C
never flew again. Oh yea - no back seaters in the A/C at the time -
just 2 O's in the front.

Hope this helps.
Regards,






D