Fat Albert JATO takeoff Friday evening just after dusk at Pensacola

Scubabix added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

can't see too clearly and I don't know anything about this
plane but is this JATO or RATO? I just can't see if the
engines have air intakes but it looks like they might.

It is Rocket Assisted, however the common nomenclature is
JATO. I always questioned it too.

Rob, I first heard the term JATO when I was a boy at a Selfridge
AFB air show in Michigan. My first JATO "experience" really was
in jet engines attached to prop planes. For awhile, later B-36s
with jets used that term incorrectly. Then, by the time RATO came
along in the mid- to late-1950s for aircraft such as the B-47, it
was very, very clear that this was rocket and not jet assisted
takeoff. I agree with you that old terms die hard and this may be
a generic one like Kleenex or Xerox.

Since you are much more up on this stuff than me, are there any
real JATO planes in the air today or are they all either
permanent or droppable RATO units? I'm not sure, but I think I
have heard of reusable RATO pods being applied to heavily loaded
transport aircraft and maybe on some bombers but I may be daft on
that.

--
HP, aka Jerry