Go/No Go
Well, well, well. Such prose and self recommendation from our BA Nigel brother.
While the theory may seem fine and the approval of the Regulator is used as a pacifier, the reality in practice can be very different to the anticapted outcome.
And who says the regulator has the expertise to make such decisions when they are not the exposed ones and in fact may be wrong. That is not to say they are but.........they are not the repository if all avaion expertise in my view.
Gluepot has got it right and there are good reasons for his comments.
Apart from the practicalities (talk about that later).......who is responsible for the "safety of the aircraft and pax? The captain!
Who gets strung up if the call by the learned and highly skilled support person (F/E or PNF) calls a bad call. And don't think it can't happen no matter what the company says.
Wait until you are in the witness box in a private legal battle and see who your friends are then.
And are we really sugesting a contiuned take-off at 80 knots plus? Finer if you don't have a balanced field but how about the effects of using clearway and screen height.
And if the procedure is fine for the abort, do we use the support person to COMMAND an action over which the captain has not real control. Perhaps an emergency descent....or even an engine fire AT 1,000 FT AGL after takeoff.
..................."Fire No1" says the support person...... "SHUTDOWN NOW"......... and forget the extended second segment climb.
The difficulty in an these scenarios is that there are so many. And to write procedure after procedure......many different............in an attempt to cover all these scenarios is well nigh impossible.
So..........what is the solution. Accept the fact that the captain is the responsible pilot. He can get information from the tea lady if he likes...............but he makes the decision..........he executes the manoeuvre and then there is no fancy "I'll do this and you'll do that and by the way, if I forget you do this too".
And there is real handover required (although there is a defacto one) when the Captain is PNF. Gluepot said it right. Captain has his hand on the thrust levers until V1 and then on the wheel.
Simple.
If there is abort he slams the thrust levers shut, jumps on the brakes.......or (RTO is on) and grabs reverse in about 1second and if not automatic deployment, graps the spoiler handle.
There is one airline (almost the largest in the world) who call V1 at 5 knots before so that the real V1 is the one that is actioned. And thsi arile also considers a bias to go at 100 knots plus.
But that is only a bias and the final dession is with the captain.
One last thing.............and I can see the arrows being sharpened now................how about the abort on a real long runway above V1.........like what happened in the UK a few years back. Now that's for another time I suspect.
Happy flights