Hoppy “You only become a test pilot when you operate an aircraft outside of its scheduled performance”.
Nope,
but I agree that you should not stop above V1.
MushinPilot43 “… is being a test pilot.....” Definitely not!
t.p’s avoid doing stupid things. The point is that the circumstances which you ‘dream-up’ are extremely unlikely to occur, and then not exactly at the critical time of an RTO ‘decision’. The basis of safety in our industry is probability, minimising risk by dealing with known or foreseeable hazards in the safest way. The definition of foreseeable in certification involves probability; about 10e-6 IIRC.
The weakest component in an RTO (and in most other operations) is the human element. The hypothesising of extreme scenarios does little to strengthen well proven procedures and guidance at critical time.
Safety is not absolute, it is not perfect, and we strive to improve our standards. But in seeking to cover all extremes there is a risk that you will introduce opportunity for error (situation assessment, judgement), or with situation/procedural complexity you change established habits formed in training and exacerbate an already hazardous situation.
Remember that ‘we are what we think’ - we do what we think, thus those with hazardous thoughts (risk taking) have no place in the industry.
The stop/go decision should be one of the easier clear-cut decisions in aviation.
The process normally starts with a trigger event (before V1), where the situation has to be assessed against predetermined parameters or conditions (SOPs). You should not have to consider the nature of the condition – tire, surge, or mentally debate the severity or effect; this is done before flight and covered by procedure and training detailing how they might be identified etc, even if relevant.
Where the aircraft is not flyable (normally established after V1), then there isn’t a go decision; you
will stop sometime, all you can hope to do is minimise the damage. It will not be an RTO, but it will be an accident, as will in all probability, be an RTO after V1.