Originally Posted by
Kerosene Kraut
Could JATO for commercial airplanes still be certified today?
Where would you drop the empty bottles?
I doubt it - I don't think you could show the necessary reliability (JATO bottles have been known to occasionally go boom - that would be serious bad news if it was strapped to a commercial airliner at the time). This all happened before my time - stories told by coworkers who had been involved ~10 years earlier. But I got the impression the JATO option was basically just a rule beater.
Back in 2011, we took a 747-8F to Kangerlussuaq in Greenland to do some cold weather testing. First full day we were there it was too warm for the planned testing so we basically got the day off (took a tour up to the glacier which was quite interesting). Anyway walking around Kangerlussaug there are literally hundreds of used JATO bottles. I understand they use them to get C130's off the icecap. Some of the bottles were just laying about but most incorporated into the local landscape - fences and such made from old JATO bottles.