Editing JATO (section)

==Early experiments and World War II==
In 1927 the [[Soviet]] research and development laboratory [[Gas Dynamics Laboratory]] developed [[solid-propellant rocket]]s to assist aircraft take-off and in 1931 the world's first successful use of rockets to assist take-off of aircraft were carried out on a [[:ru:У-1|U-1]], the [[Soviet Union military aircraft designation systems|Soviet designation]] for a [[Avro 504]] trainer, which achieved about one hundred successful assisted takeoffs.<ref name="Glushko">{{cite book |last1=Glushko |first1=Valentin |title=Developments of Rocketry and Space Technology in the USSR |date=1973 |publisher=Novosti Press Pub. House |page=7 |url=https://www.amazon.com/Development-rocketry-space-technology-USSR/dp/B0006CHI4I}}</ref><ref>[http://www.airwar.ru/enc/other1/u1.html У-1] на сайте airwar.ru – «Уголок неба»</ref> Successful assisted takeoffs were also achieved on the [[Tupolev TB-1]].<ref name="RSB_GDL">{{cite web |last1=Zak |first1=Anatoly |title=Gas Dynamics Laboratory |url=http://www.russianspaceweb.com/gdl.html |website=Russian Space Web |access-date=29 May 2022}}</ref> and [[Tupolev TB-3]] Heavy Bombers.<ref name="Glushko" /><ref name="R&P_Vol1">{{cite book |last1=Chertok |first1=Boris |title=Rockets and People |date=31 January 2005 |publisher=National Aeronautics and Space Administration |pages=164–165 |edition=Volume 1 |url=https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/rockets_people_vol1_detail.html |access-date=29 May 2022}}</ref> The official test of the Tupolev TB-1 in 1933 shortened the takeoff by 77% when using the rockets.<ref name="Glushko" />

Early experiments using rockets to boost [[Glider (aircraft)|gliders]] into the air were conducted in Germany in the 1920s ([[Lippisch Ente]]), and later both the [[Royal Air Force]] and the [[Luftwaffe]] introduced such systems in [[World War II]].<ref>"For operations from small flight decks with heavy loads, rocket-assisted take-offs were necessary." http://uboat.net/allies/aircraft/swordfish.htm</ref> The British system used fairly large solid fuel rockets to shoot planes (typically the [[Hawker Hurricane]]) off a small ramp fitted to the fronts of merchant ships, known in service as [[CAM ship|Catapult armed merchantmen (or CAM Ships)]], in order to provide some cover against [[Nazi Germany|German]] [[maritime patrol]] planes. After firing, the rocket was released from the back of the plane to fall into the water and sink. The task done, the pilot would fly to friendly territory if possible or parachute from the plane, hopefully to be picked up by one of the escort vessels. Over two years the system was only employed nine times to attack German aircraft with eight kills recorded for the loss of a single pilot.

[[File:Arado 234B 1.jpg|thumb|right|A German [[Arado 234]] Blitz fitted with [[Walter HWK 109-500|''Starthilfe'']] RATO units]]
[[File:Ar 234 B-2 RATO and engine.jpg|thumb|Starthilfe RATO (left) on the starboard wing of Arado Ar 234 B-2 at the [[Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center]] in Virginia.]]
[[File:Walters 500.png|thumb|right|The ''Starthilfe'' RATO unit]]
The [[Luftwaffe]] also used the technique with both liquid-fueled units made by the [[Hellmuth Walter Kommanditgesellschaft|Walter]] firm and BMW&nbsp;– and solid fuel, themselves made both by [[List of aircraft engines of Germany during World War II#Rockets|the Schmidding and WASAG firms]]&nbsp;– as both firmly attached and jettisonable rocket motors, to get airborne more quickly and with shorter takeoff runs. These were used to boost the takeoff performance of their medium bombers, and the enormous 55-meter wingspan ''Gigant'', [[Messerschmitt Me 321]] glider, conceived in 1940 for the invasion of Britain, and used to supply the Russian front.  The enormous Me 321s originally had air tow assistance from up to three [[Messerschmitt Bf 110]] heavy fighters in a so-called ''Troika-Schlepp'' arrangement into the air with loads that would have made the takeoff run too long otherwise, but with much attendant risk of aerial collision from the trio of [[Vic formation|vee-formation]] Bf 110s involved in a simultaneous [[Aerotowing|towplane]] function, meant to be greatly eased with the substitution of the trio of Bf 110s with a single example of the unusual, twin-fuselage [[Heinkel He 111Z]] purpose-designed five-engined towplane. The use of rocket-assisted takeoff methods became especially important late in the war when the lengths of usable runways were severely curtailed due to the results of Allied bombing. Their system typically used jettisonable, self-contained [[Walter HWK 109-500]] ''Starthilfe'' ("takeoff-help"), also known as "Rauchgerät" – smoke generator, unitized liquid-fuel monopropellant rocket booster units whose engines driven by chemical decomposition of "[[T-Stoff]]", essentially almost pure [[hydrogen peroxide]], with a [[Z-Stoff]] catalytic compound.  A [[parachute]] pack at the blunt-contour front of the motor's exterior housing was used to slow its fall after being released from the plane, so the system could be re-used. First experiments were held in 1937 on a [[Heinkel He 111]], piloted by test-pilot [[Erich Warsitz]] at [[Neuhardenberg]], a large field about 70 kilometres east of [[Berlin]], listed as a reserve airfield in the event of war.<ref>Warsitz, Lutz: [http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/?product_id=1762 ''The First Jet Pilot – The Story of German Test Pilot Erich Warsitz'' (p. 45), Pen and Sword Books Ltd., England, 2009] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131202223101/http://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/?product_id=1762 |date=2 December 2013 }}</ref> Other German experiments with JATO were aimed at assisting the launch of interceptor aircraft such as the [[Messerschmitt Me 262]]C, as the ''Heimatschützer'' special versions, usually fitted with either a version of the [[Walter HWK 109-509]] liquid fuelled rocket engine from the [[Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet|Me 163]] ''Komet'' program either in the extreme rear of the fuselage or semi-"podded" beneath it just behind the wing's trailing edge, to assist its [[Junkers Jumo 004]] turbojets, or a pair of specially rocket-boosted [[BMW 003#"Mixed-power" upgrade|BMW 003R]] combination jet-rocket powerplants in place of the Jumo 004s, so that the Me 262C ''Heimatschützer'' interceptors could reach enemy bomber formations sooner. Two prototypes of the ''Heimatschützer'' versions of the Me 262 were built and test flown, of the three designs proposed. In contrast to [[Walter HWK 109-500#Applications|the wide variety of aircraft types]] that the HWK-designed ''Starthilfe'' modular liquid monopropellant booster designs were tested with, seeing some degree of front-line use;  the aforementioned solid-fueled RATO booster designs from both the Schmidding and WASAG firms remained almost strictly experimental in nature, with the [[Schmidding SG 34|Schmidding 500 kg thrust solid-fueled booster units]] intended to see service, a quartet mounted per airframe for use with the radical [[Bachem Ba 349]] VTO rocket interceptor design in 1945, for its vertical launch needs. The strictly experimental, HWK 109-501 ''Starthilfe'' RATO system used a similar bi-propellant "hot" motor to that on the [[Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet|Me 163B]] ''Komet'' rocket fighter, adding a 20&nbsp;kg mass of a combination of [[List of stoffs|B-stoff]] hydrazine, mixed with "Br-stoff" ([[ligroin]] hydrocarbon distillate) for a main "fuel" to the [[T-Stoff]] monopropellant still destabilized with the Z-Stoff permanganate for ignition as the oxidizer, tripling the 109-500's thrust figure of 4.95&nbsp;kN (at 14.71&nbsp;kN/1,500 kgf) with a burn of 30 second duration. Due to the "hot" system's similar risks demanding similar special fueling and handling procedures to that of the Komet's 509A rocket motor, the 109-501 seems to have remained a strictly experimental design, only being used for the test flights of the [[Junkers Ju 287]] V1 prototype jet bomber.<ref>[http://www.muzeumlotnictwa.pl/zbiory_sz.php?ido=226&w=a Krakow Polish Aviation Museum's page on the HWK 109-501 ''Starthilfe'' RATO pod]</ref>

In early 1939, the [[National Academy of Sciences]] in the United States provided $1,000 to [[Theodore von Kármán]] and the Rocket Research Group (including [[Jack Parsons (rocket engineer)|Jack Parsons]], [[Frank Malina]], [[Edward Forman]] and [[Apollo M. O. Smith]]) at the [[Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory]] at the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) to research rocket-assisted take-off of aircraft. This JATO research was the first rocket research to receive financial assistance from the U.S. government since World War I when [[Robert H. Goddard]] had an Army contract to develop solid fuel rocket weapons.<ref>{{cite web 
| url=http://www.olats.org/OLATS/pionniers/memoir1.shtml 
| title=Memoir on the GALCIT Rocket Research Project 
| last=Malina 
| first=Frank J. 
| publisher=l'Observatoire Leonardo pour les Arts et les Techno-Sciences 
| year=1967 
| access-date=17 August 2008 
| archive-date=5 February 2012 
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205093959/http://www.olats.org/OLATS/pionniers/memoir1.shtml 
| url-status=dead 
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web 
| url=https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4406/chap2.html 
| title=Orders of Magnitude – A History of the NACA and NASA, 1915–1990, Ch. 2 
| publisher=[[NASA]] 
| year=1989
}}</ref><ref name=Lehman>{{cite book |last1=Lehman |first1=Milton |title=Robert H. Goddard |date=1988 |publisher=Da Capo Press |isbn=978-0-306-80331-4 |pages=91–95 }}</ref> 
In late 1941 von Kármán and his team attached several 50-pound thrust, solid fuel [[Aerojet]] JATOs to a light Ercoupe plane, and Army Captain [[Homer Boushey]] took off on test runs. On the last run they removed the propeller, attached six JATO units under the wings, and Boushey was thrust into the air for a short flight, the first American to fly by rocket power only. Both armed services used solid fuel JATO during the war.<ref name=Lehman/>{{rp|329}}