>Catapult launch! / !Lanzamiento de catapulta!

" Even now I close my eyes and hear the clickety-clack of the shuttle, as it moves aft for the next launch. The exhaust from the powerful and reliable F-110 engines fills my nostrils until we drop the canopy and bring our jet to life. Air roars through the ECS. Systems power up. Soon we're parked behind the cat, waiting our turn. I roger the weight board -68,000 pounds! Grasp that if you can! The jet blast deflector comes down and we taxi into place, my pilot deftly splitting the cat track with the twin nose tires. And then -even after decades of doing the same thing- the adrenaline starts to flow as we start into the deck ballet unique to the Tomcat. The nose strut compresses, giving the fighter the look of a rail dragster. The launch bar drops down. Wings motor forward. Flaps lower. Outboard spoiler module circuit breaker is engaged -an old RIO gotcha. Our four hands go up as the ordies arm the missiles, bombs and gun. The cat officer's arm is raised. My pilot puts the throttles to mil power and wipes the controls -stick forward, aft, left, right, rudder left, rudder right. "Mooch, you ready?" he asks. I run the fingers of my right hand across the top of the lower ejection handle -just for orientation purposes, of course- and answer: "Ready." He trades right-handed salutes with the cat officer. We both lean forward slightly into the straps -no self respecting Tomcatter would take a cat shot with his melon against the headrest, a good way to get the old bell rung because of the way the airplane surges down before it jerks forward. A couple of potatoes* and we're off. Airborne."

Ward “Mooch” Carroll
F-14 Tomcat RIO for 17 years, author of the Tomcat trilogy starting with 'Punks War'. www.wardcarroll.com
(permission by him to reproduce previous text, from Tomcat Bye-Bye, Baby...! by Parsons/Hall/Lawson, Zenith Press 2006, p. 6)

*potatoes: word used to count seconds: one potato...two potatoes...three potatoes…

07-06 T.Roosevelt/F-14 series H R

An F/A-18C about to be launched.