I went solo in 1957. From 1962 until I retired in 2006 I never had less than 4 engines to play with (apart from 8 years on the DC-10).
Crossing the Atlantic or the Pacific in an aeroplane with only two engines was something that would have filled me and my colleagues with horror. I never had to do it. (In fact, I never flew a commercial twin so I didn't even have to contemplate the exercise.)
For me, it was quite easy. If you have four engines running, think three.
If you have three engines running, think two.
In most occasions, the loss of one engine on a four engined aircraft was a bit of an annoyance but was seldom anything even remotely resembling an emergency.
Now, with the advance of modern economics, we are into a situation where just about everything that goes across the Pond does so on two engines so it is hardly surprising that the two engine lobby can't understand the thinking of the four engine lobby who are now in the minority.
The loss of one out of four is a bit of an annoyance.
The loss of one out of two IS AN EMERGENCY.
I don't give a toss about all of these wonderful statistics that we are constantly regaled with. It was probably ten years ago when a United Airlines 777 was headed from the Far East to the USA when it lost an engine. It took it over three hours to get to Hilo in Hawaii on the remaining engine.
Are any of you out there really going to tell me that the crew were more than happy with their situation or do you not think that they might just have wished that they had started off with four engines?
As far as I am concerned, those of you you who have become convinced that flying across the oceans of the world is statistically safer on two engines than it is on four engines have been brain-washed and are more than somewhat deluded.
Purely an observation from a retired old fart (who is still alive).