It was a bit parochial to some extent, I guess, but operational management took the view that IPEC would keep the AFM first segment not worse than the runway slope for the old Queen of the Skies. The idea was that this approach would maintain a level of risk similar to that pertaining for a level runway. On occasion, that resulted in a dollar penalty but corporate risk assessment accepted that as being appropriate. MEL34, being a regular runway, was one of the concerns we had which led to the operational management decision.
The Argosy was a bit unusual in that the first segment went on and on for a bit and the concern was that there was no need to risk an encounter of the close kind in the event of an early failure and, say, a bit of turbulence to make things untidy (turbulence being a close cousin to MEL34) .... I'd need to pull out an AFM from the bottom drawer of the dungeon to check but, as I recall, the first segment generally approximated something in the order of half a mile. We did a number of things which were a little more conservative than what might have been adopted by other operators.
Good to see you are still in the game, Dick. Trust life is treating you well as we all get older and older ....