Wednesday 21 May 2008

Possibly one of the ballsiest things ever tried.....

8 comments:

Gareth said...

The Doolittle raid. A fantastic gamble.

Not the biggest aeroplane to take off from a carrier though. And more importantly the Hercules could land on one too.

Gareth said...

Bummer. Did the links wrong. Doolittle raid.

Hercules carrier landing.

juvat said...

And they were AAC (read USAF) pilots!

Brian said...

The Douglas A3D Skywarrior had a max take off weight of 82,000lb and operated off USN carriers. And the NAA A-5 Vigilante had a mtow of 62,950lb. Here's a photo link:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/A3D-2-Skywarrior-VAH-6-April1958.jpg

Lester304 said...

One of the B-25's took off with it's flaps up.
The first one to take off were the bravest. But they were all brave, a suicide mission to bomb Japan. And they forced Japan to keep more fighter planes at home.

Minicapt said...

Gallimaufry
The catapult was a contributing factor.

dbase- they were ARMY pilots.

Cheers

Anonymous said...

Catapult ? Not on this mission. Meanwhile, ballsy and gamble weren't terms that Doolittle would aspire to. His shtick was, throughout his career, calculated risk.

Anonymous said...

The Hornet did not have a catapult. The carrier turned into the wind and the B-25's did a short rolling takeoff.