Why do you believe that?

Specific to the electric plane, you remove some of the battery weight, as that energy would then come from the catapult.

But, as a general thing? I don't see it happening. There's a TON of complexity in a catapult system.

Plus, the amount of spilled champagne in first class is going to ruin a lot of suits and blouses. Can't have that. ;)

You could design in an electric autonomous-returning JATO-like system to allow for extended distance flights.

Oh, even better, you're always going to have enough propeller power to take off. Extremely high power-density batteries on a glider which detaches at cruising altitude and flies back to the airport? Oh, you fly even higher than normal before detaching to transfer even more energy into PE?

Hmm, shouldn't electric be able to fly even higher? But they're short range, so probably not worth it ... yet.

> There's a TON of complexity in a catapult system.

But it's all on the ground.

True, but you'd need, at minimum, a well-trained crew to operate. The catapult settings vary by take-off weight. Who manages that? Does each airline run their own crew (contract) as they do other ground services? Or does the airport run it?

The airframes would have be heavier, beefed up to take that load. FWIW, the Navy version of the F-35 weighs ~5000lbs more than the AF version's 29000 dry weight (granted, that's also additional folding wing changes). It also costs about 20% more per unit.

Anyways, it's all certainly possible. Just impractical without a real need.

But catapult launch ballistic passenger gliders would be pretty cool.

Take off weight is calculated anyway.

Airport crew could do it based on calculated weight comunicated by pilots. With current technology it could even be automated - pull the airplane 10 m at a fixed (low) power setting, determine how fast it accelerated, calculate mass, increase power accordingly for the rest of the takeoff distance. Even an Arduino could do it.

Or simply apply the maximum force supported by the airplane's attachment point (front landing gear) no matter what the weight is.

Airframes would probably not need much strenghtening. I expect that the forces from wheel breaks are aprox. the same.

PS: With a catapult / winch launch, the MTOW could probably be increased a little - more passengers and cargo for the same flight costs.

Pretty sure passengers will object to being catapulted. Kids may love it though.

But realistically you're either imparting 2G and hurting 10% of the passengers, or you may as well not bother with one. The "JATO-like" solution of a modular prop+battery unit giving you a takeoff+climb boost for 10 minutes and then heading back to the airport seems less objectionable.

At a comfortable 1G acceleration it would reach 500 Km/h in less than 1000 m or 750 Km/h in 2000 m.

I'm guessing a 1km long catapult - if not 2km - would be really really tricky. Maybe a long winch with a super super super safe way to detach it as soon as the nose is pointing up?

But, regardless, it's actually shorter than I thought! Although 1G forward acceleration is still quite a bit. Imagine elderly passengers with osteoporosis... and the lawsuits.

Instantaneous 1g might feel like a lot, but a relatively "soft" ramp to 1g would surely mitigate that complaint? I mean, we'd all be buckled into seats. And some sports cars can hit 1g with a good "drag race" start - and yes, that's definitely not something I'd do with granny in the seat, only pointing out it's not a crazy amount of acceleration if a factory-spec Mustang can do it.

The ground is usually where planes have their accidents.

Airplane tugs (electric) driven by airport personnel + ground navigation aids would decrease those too, and airplanes won't need to burn fuel waiting in line for takeoff at busy airports.