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While reading this question I saw an image of a plane marked as a US Marines plane of some sort with thrusters or rockets of some sort attached to the sides just past the CG. What plane is this and why are the rockets there?

Image: enter image description here

dalearn
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2 Answers2

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As the source linked next to the image in the other question says, it is a C-130 performing a "rocket assisted takeoff".

These are performed to safely achieve V1 on short airfields, where the aircraft would not be able to take off otherwise.

The rockets (or "bottles") use solid fuel, so they are usually single-use.

I have no data on the thrust provided by one of them, but the wikipedia article mentions that a "smaller version" made for the civilian market, could deliver "250 pounds of thrust for 12 seconds", so it is reasonable to expect that the thrust provided by the larger bottles would be larger.

Federico
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    Can you expand on that and explain how much the rockets do? how and when are they used as it appears to me as if they would be quite expensive to use only once! – dalearn Aug 05 '17 at 16:14
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    They are used for takeoffs from either short, soft or restrictive fields with nearby obstacles requiring an very short ground roll and improved performance climb. The system itself is relatively reasonable in price; solid fuel rockets are cheap and easy to reload and replace. In this application, the JATO system is being used just for public demonstration of said capabilities – Romeo_4808N Aug 05 '17 at 16:52
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    An experiment with a C130 was to see if those rockets could be used to stop the plane, to land it in a stadium. This was one plan to rescue the hostages in Iran in 1978 as there was no helicopter with the range to make it to Tehran and back. Unfortunately, that didn't work very well. No one was killed during the tests but one C130 was destroyed in the attempt. The V22 Osprey was a direct offshoot of that rescue attempt - a VTOL aircraft with much greater speed and range. – tj1000 Aug 05 '17 at 17:11
  • How long of a takeoff run does the C130 need when using these? – dalearn Aug 05 '17 at 22:29
  • @dalearn as I said in the answer, I have no data on that. – Federico Aug 06 '17 at 05:22
  • @dalearn: The Tehran plan was to land and take off from on a soccer field (!). – MSalters Aug 07 '17 at 06:44
  • you could estimate the takeoff length needed based on min takeoff speed, estimated weight of the aircraft, estimated thrust of the rockets, and estimated thrust of the engines. You can find most of the info online and ballpark estimate the rest ;) – Florian Castellane Aug 07 '17 at 08:19
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    @FlorianCastellane you're welcome to try it yourself and write your answer :) – Federico Aug 07 '17 at 08:23
  • @tj1000: Said plan was named Operation Credible Sport. – Vikki May 19 '18 at 00:42
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This C-130 is with the Blue Angels demonstration team. Affectionately nicknamed Fat Albert. The rockets are JATO(Jet Assisted TakeOff) bottles, and basically jets/rockets that provide a temporary thrust boost for shorter take-offs.

gatorback
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slookabill
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