A couple of notes from the peanut gallery:
In the mighty C-5, the engineers spent probably 20 minutes computing every detaicl on every take-off including Vmcg (corrected for xwind, just about 1 kt/kt), refusal speed and distance, and (of all things) take-off ground run. I cannot explain the reason for the last one other than it was surprisingly close to critical field length with zero height at DER. But, for a pilot that read and understood the data, no excuse for not having a full idea of what was going to happen when. So underpowered was the plane, we frequently made WAT-limited take-offs, esp in the Gulf.
I thought it was all interesting but rather pedantic....until I saw the data confirmed by a functional test or two. Limiting take-off at Sig to the east, just a couple of knots prior to V1, we were struck by a flock of birds, the A/C elected to stop. And stop we did, the end of the runway was not visible from the jump seat between the seats. Another time, landing on RCR 5 braking poor, the computed landing distance was 5000 feet on a 7000 foot runway. Standing on the brakes and I mean standing, we came to halt at the 2000 feet remaining marker. Guys, when the data says it will do it, it will, if you do your part.
On other thing, I always instructed new pilots that if they needed max anti-skid braking, they best plan on STANDING on the brakes like they did for a full power standing take-off. We did those too. Saved the guy at Sigonella.
Thanks J_T for the excellent thread guidance.
GF