Rog747, your post brings it all back. I was there. First to land after runway inspection and assurance that fire cover still available. Not nice turning final and landing with a burning wreck on the end of the runway.
Thread creeping, a bit, but it becomes interesting again. The DC10 was past VR. Definite GO situation but what a dilemma. Commander on the spot, again, uncomfortable about the flying quality of his aircraft and facing calamity if he rejects.
As a spotty FO on Tridents, we were party to one of our aircraft rejecting at or just above V1 at Bilbao after running into a long wet puddle and facing non-acceleration. Tough call again, eh ? He rejected and ground-looped as the end of the short runway threatened !Overview with 20/20 hindsight vision was that he should have continued. Lively debate in the Vanners for years later !
Then, sometimes you don't even know. During Command Training (sorry, testing) after Base Training (sorry, testing) we finally headed home with ATC telling us that we had left lots of rubber all over the runway. No bang, no swing, no vibration. Training Captain (sorry, Testing Captain) did deliver a masterful lesson in Command "thinking", leadership, CRM etc as we carried on to Base. Cripes, didn't even like the bloke but it was very useful demonstration of the skills we new Commanders were expected to demonstrate.
Oh yeah, still got the speedo's.