[greedo]

Catapults have almost always been used to minimize takeoff space, or eliminate it entirely (drone launches). The tradeoffs in using a catapult are stress on the airframe, heavier planes due to hardening the airframe to mitigate this stress, as well as an uncomfortable experience for the passengers. There's also the risk of cold cats as I mentioned. You seem to be ignoring these issues entirely.

Airbus's "Eco Climb" was greenwashing at its finest, and despite them touting it in 2012, here we are over a decade later without ANYONE doing something this dumb. The comment above misses out on some basic aircraft fundamentals. One, most of the energy used by an aircraft is in flight, not in rolling off a runway. So the amount of energy saved compared to the added complexity makes it a dumb idea.

Sure, you could make the catapult the length of a runway, mitigating the G force etc. Then you have a Rube Goldberg device that needs to accommodate every aircraft that uses the runway. And this device can't interfere with landing or taxiing either. Then you need to get this device adopted by most airports, otherwise you've immediately gimped your airliner when it lands somewhere that lacks this device.

This idea reminds me of crap I used to read in Popular Mechanics and Popular Science (RIP) that had great ideas that were never developed because their underlying assumptions didn't match with the real world.

You might as well off up the idea of using a blimp/dirigible to lift the airliner up to altitude then drop it off...

Oh and I believe referring to the Airbus quote is an appeal to authority? Considering that Airbus design flaws killed a lot of people, maybe reconsider?