Easy!!! TB-3 and its parasite fighters! :-)

Sorry, both good answers, but not quite right. Now, to contrive the reasons: I'm not counting a normal aircraft stuffed with explosives as a weapon - not in the sense of being designed as one. Similarly, a parasite aircraft is still an aircraft rather than a weapon.

I did say they'd be contrived ...

ar 234 used ratog. Were ones with with some kind of rocket, say Hs 293 use some rocket thrust to get airborne?

Not as far as I know, but you is getting warmer.

Any hints?

All-jet - both the aircraft and the weapons.

The Fiesler Fi103R perhaps???

'Fraid not. The launch aircraft was prop-driven and I'm not sure there would even have been enough fuel to fire up the engine until the last minute.

Pulse-jet ... yuk!

But you said it was jet / jet... Back to thinking..

The weapon must be heavy, a cruise missile? jet not rocket. launched from a prop driven aircraft., also a jet (a turbo prop)
Jeez Sean!
How about an exocet carried by a pucara then?

Scratch that. Exocet is a rocket. Back to the thinking.

Sorry, not making myself clear. When I said "The launch aircraft was prop-driven and I'm not sure there would even have been enough fuel to fire up the engine until the last minute" I was referring to the He 111 / Fi 103 combination. What I'm looking for is a jet aircraft (and that excludes turboprops), with a jet-powered weapon. Which, yes, was quite big.

Hi Sean

This one's really doing my head in! I keep coming back to the Lockheed D-21/M-21 combo - although that's stretching the definition of a weapon somewhat...

All the best

Rowan

Tu-16 with the huge missiles they carried?

Rowan and Warren are both very much closer, for different reasons, but both wrong. The D-21 was punted off the back of the A-12 and didn't light its engine til it was well clear; being ramjet-powered, it couldn't help with take-off. History doesn't record whether the Tu-16 borrowed its armament to take off, but with that configuration, it would have been hellish risky. Still, not much left to eliminate now ...

Hi Sean

According to Wiki, the drone's engine was used in flight before launch (but not for take-off):

"The M-21/D-21 combination began captive flight-testing on 22 December 1964, continuing through 1965. Aerodynamic covers that were in place over the intake and exhaust were removed after the first few tests, as it was unable to drop them at Mach 3 without damaging the M-21 and/or D-21. Increased drag caused by the removal was overcome by using the D-21's ramjet as a third engine, drawing fuel from the M-21's tanks until the drone was released."

All the best

Rowan

But I don't think the drone was a weapon...

Hi Warren

No, I agree, I think that would be stretching the definition too far.

All the best

Rowan

Hi again

How about a B-52 with an AGM-28 Hound Dog? Wiki again:

"In 1960, SAC developed procedures so that the B-52 could utilize the Hound Dog's J52 engine for additional thrust while the missile was located on the bomber's pylon. This helped heavily laden B-52s into the air. The Hound Dog could then be refueled from the B-52's wing fuel tanks."

All the best

Rowan

Sounds right to me

Sorry, all, been away from the computer again. Staying in an old glove factory in the Midlands.

I didn't know that about the D-21 but, as Warren as pointed out, it wasn't a weapon (although it was so unreliable that if you were anywhere near its flight path you were in mortal danger), and lighting it before launch seems to have been for reasons other than helping the A-12 take off. A Blackbird short of thrust? Possibly not ...

Merlin has it - it was the B-52/AGM-28 combination, making it (briefly) SAC's second ten-engined aircraft.

You have control ...

Cheers Sean

Ok, next question: what was the first air-launched guided weapon? (I think I've got the right solution, but will obviously accept anything earlier.)

All the best

Rowan

I seem to remember seeing a doco on a radio-guided free-fall bomb that was dropped by B-24s in Burma. From memory, the guidance system was used to avoid POW camps next to the proposed targets.

Is that what you are thinking of, Rowan?

Graeme.

Hi Graeme

I hadn't heard of your example but, no, what I'm thinking of is a fair bit earlier than that.

All the best

Rowan

Was it the Kettering Aerial Torpedo. A 530lb flying bomb, nicknamed the "Bug.
Andy

Hi Andy

That is very, very close...

All the best

Rowan