WRH
Please cite your FAR 121 or similar experience (Military heavy jet, JAA ops, etc.) before you state opinions on subjects you seem to know nothing.
All of certification and operational standards are based on probabilities of success or failure, safety itself is based a probability once one leaves the bed each morning, yet we do and in the die in bed.
Your method of aviation appears based on gut feeling, seat of the pants, Kentucky windage. You seem to think you can experience a failure, take a glance out the windshield and decide to stop or not. Obviously, performance theory and practice is a wasted subject on yourself. Once before, I asked if you always calculated a refusal speed (accelerate-stop speed for the runway) for each take-off you do in whatever flying machine you are trusted with, the reason being, so you would know when you could no longer stop. Never answered that one, did you?
I have known of three cases where the performance in the V1 situation was tested. Two, I personally knew the individuals involved; one I witnessed. All, straggly involved bird strikes right near V1 or in the time between V1 and Vr.
The first two, involved loss of one engine between V1 and Vr, the captains took it airborne, as recommended by the "book" and the performance data. They would have clearly overrun with 60 or more knots. The one I saw happen carried 140,000 pounds of HE for the little dustup in '91. Both had additional problems with a second engine after they got airborne with large vibration moments. Both planes landed successfully, one out of a minimums PAR. The resulting investigations upheld the decisions of the captains, one got a peacetime DFC. The point being planes will deliver the performance specified and nobody ever had a collision with the sky--planes are meant to be there.
The third case was a rejected take-off at NAS Sig, where birds struck the plane just prior to V1. No damage was noted, but the commander, who expressed similar stop orientation as you do, elected to stop. I was in the jump seat and really thought we would go off-roading. We made it with feet to spare--the end of the runway was not visible from the front seats, 34 feet above the ground. All of these incidents were thoroughly investigated, resulted in no changes to the SOP and occurred in planes weighing 600,000 pounds or more.
The point of this dreary tale is that pros do NOT merely "do as they're told", they are learned in performance planning; know that briefed SOP is a far, FAR better response to an emergency and odds are vastly more in everyone's favor if one follows it, rather than inventing responses in the "heat of the battle". If you need proof of this, sit thru some tough sims and watch guys struggle making answers up and crashing.
Mutt J_T
Besides US Mil bases where the clearance standards are exceptionally high (basically 1,000' of surfaced overrun plus level ground 500' either side of centerline and extending beyond the overrun), I have seen many, MANY more airports with very nasty terrain beyond the runway than ones with benign areas. Many have drop-offs greater than 50', highways, etc. The KTEB overrun, where the pilot did a "SSG" rejected take-off, crossed a major highway, critically injuring a motorist and smashed into a bakery. He just got sentenced to 180 days of "3 hits and a cot". SWA overran at KBUR into a gas station "eyeballing" an wildly unstable approach, as they did at KMDW, killing a child in a car. Ignoring the considered wisdom KILLS.
GF
Last edited by galaxy flyer; 28th Aug 2011 at 10:19.