Fat Albert takeoff & display

[Leading Observer]

The commentary is a annoying, but the JATO takeoff is worth seeing
http://www.warhistoryonline.com/whotube-2/blue-angels-fat-albert-crazy-gut-wrencinging-take_off_watch.html

[PR19_Kit]

Awesome it certainly is, but I wish they'd shoot that commentator, he's terrible!

[Rheged]

The late, great Raymond Baxter would have done it much more  suavely and in a restrained manner.  This visual  didn't deserve to have that audio imposed on it.

[PR19_Kit]

The late, great Raymond Baxter would have done it much more  suavely and in a restrained manner. 

A great bloke, I'm pleased to say I knew him in the 60s and 70s. I made my first television appearance with Raymond on 'Tomorrow's World' once. 

[Big Head mode off]

[rickshaw]

Awesome it certainly is, but I wish they'd shoot that commentator, he's terrible!

Terribly, well, American, I must say.  Spectacular take off though.   I've been in a C-130 which did something similar without JATO.  Up and away very quickly from a bush strip (and around a big hill at the end!).  Not as spectacular as my first service flight in a 'Bou.  He bounced the plane on the runway to get it up quicker!   Suddenly your up and then you drop and then once you've left your stomach behind on the ground your up again!   

[Nick]

I was at one of the last North Weald airshows in about 1994 and the RAF Herk did a Sarajevo landing. Seeing that great thing nearly drop onto the runway, reverse a few hundred yards and then do a rather short takeoff run was eye-opening!

The cloud of vapour it produced was large but the Harrier hover disappeared in its own fog bank!