Many moons ago, in 1975 (though I imagine it still happens), I was SLF on a Mt Cook Airlines HS748 departing Mt Cook Airport in New Zealand. The inbound flight had landed on runway 31.
There was a very strong and turbulent NW wind (at a guess 25kt gusting 40kt) off the mountains blowing into and down the valley in which the field is situated. The runway is aligned, more or less, with the valley and currently has 5,100 ft (I presume the same then) length.
The captain elected to do a downwind take off ('wrong' way) on r/w 13 to avoid expected mountain lee turbulence at the upwind end of the runway. Because the runway is on a slope (70ft difference in elevation between the ends of the runway) this meant a downhill and downwind take off so a
considerable ground speed, with screaming Darts, had to be and was achieved before we came unstuck from the runway (someone with the appropriate tech knowledge may like to calculate the groundspeed at V2 in those circumstances).
The cabin crew, who had experienced this procedure before, warned me to expect significant bumpiness just past the end of the runway as we passed over some low hills. Their warning was very handy as it felt as if the poor 748 was being kicked around the skies for about 30 seconds or so just after take off.
On arrival at Queenstown the captain followed me down the steps and could be heard telling the Traffic/Ramp guy "That's it! We're not going back THERE today!"
