[jr2]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKCl3lfAx1Q

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Credible_Sport

Interesting

[StarSlayer]

Yeah, looks like they wanted to be able to use it for the Iranian Hostage Situation.

[jr2]

Yeah, the first vid link I posted says that too. 

[StarSlayer]

Woops missed that, I blame my mad cow.

[Nuke]

they're only jato units.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, but it looks like they wanted both jet-assisted takeoff and jet-assisted landing, which is pretty crazy.

[StarSlayer]

Plus think of the riot control possibilities.  Have that thing swoop in low over a crowd kick on the rockets and boom protesters dispersed.

[Mongoose]

Dispersed and/or disintegrated.

I always did love seeing the Blue Angels perform, since they'd usually have their C-130 support plane pull a JATO before the show.  The thing just goes up.

[Bobboau]

Yeah, the first vid link I posted says that too. 

15 times...

[Dilmah G]

This would have some really interesting possibilities. I guess though that the C-27 Spartan would probably be able to get the job done in the situations JATO was required to be employed here, albeit requiring more aircraft.

[jr2]

Plus think of the riot control possibilities.  Have that thing swoop in low over a crowd kick on the rockets and boom protesters dispersed.

That's how the first one crashed, lol.. you can't use the rockets as brakes unless you shut them off before you drop under stall speed... otherwise your drop like a rock.

[Nuke]

i bet they are solid boosters and cannot be shut off.

[Polpolion]

RATO units usually are. Not much of a point to turn them on and off if you're only taking off once per trip.

[jr2]

Rather short sighted considering the possible damage if an abort becomes necessary.

[Nuke]

take-off is really a non-issue. military has used rocket assisted takeoffs for a long time. but the deceleration/descent motors you would have been specially designed and built to fire a perfect amount of thrust for the right amount of time and would have had to put the aircraft in a certain flight regime (altitude, airspeed, etc) to initiate rocket assisted landing. since they intended this with a very specific mission in mind, its not surprising at all. its a matter of "what can i do with what i have" instead of "what do i need to build to do what i want". both are valid approaches to design something like this, and the former is what you default on when there is a time constraint.