Aircraft catapult

Rarity: Uncommon

A topic a little better known than average, read and translated beyond its own country.

Rarity follows how well known the article is: its views on the French and English Wikipedia over a year, and the number of languages it exists in.

At a glance

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Notion

Domain

Science and technology

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What Wikipedia says

An aircraft catapult is an acceleration device used to help fixed-wing aircraft reach liftoff speed (VLOF) faster during takeoff, typically when trying to take off from a very short runway, as otherwise the aircraft engines alone cannot get the aircraft to sufficient airspeed quickly enough for the wings to generate the lift needed to sustain flight.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article “Aircraft catapult”, under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. Read the article on Wikipedia

Image: US Naval aviation photos, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.