Aborting T/O after v1...question?
 

Alright guys, my friend and I had an experience in the sim the other day that caused a little debate. The scenaro took place on a 14,500 foot runway in a saab 340. We received the engine fire notification the second we hit v1. I am a F/O that was playing captain. i decided to abort and we came to a stop safely on the runway. Because it was a fire indication, i decided to stay on the ground. My flight partner said he would have continued the takeoff. We want to hear what you have to say on the matter....what if it was a 7000 foot runway???

There is nothing to debate. V1 is your takeoff decision speed. Looking at performance books or even charts V1 is made with a buffer knowing that the pilot will need to retard throttles, apply brakes etc. etc.

The aircraft are designed to fly on one engine. . .climb, secure, return to land.

But, that's what the book tells me to do if I have a failure at or after V1.

But, of course, if it occurs BEFORE V1, I'm staying on the ground.

Well, V1 is V1 for a reason.............. 14,500ft RWY is excessive, but any other rwy, in reality you are going, unless a wing falls of, then I would rather have a controlled crash then try to fly, but V1 is V1.


Although as much as I like the SAAB I remember some days out of LGA in the summer, if one of those G/E went, I was ready to go for a swim...........

I understand your argument but the real question is: what if you aborted the TO just after V1 on that 14K runway but ended up damaging the plane somehow? I know you think that nothing can go wrong but what if? If you had damaged the a/c then how would you explain your actions seeing that performance and research has proven that you can take-off and returned safely? This is a question that could end up costing your more than you’re willing to pay. We have rules that were written in blood and 99.9% of then should be followed to the "T," the other .09% is the grey area and this is not a grey area.

Like I said I understand your argument but it’s best to know when to follow the book and when not too. In this case I would have continued the TO because an abort is a compete guess regardless of the length of the runway where a TO has been proven.

V1 exists for one reason only: To mark the point at which you no longer have enough runway to guarantee stopping safely.

PRIOR to V1, you abort for serious problems, such as an engine or control failure (other abort criteria are aircraft specific).

AT or AFTER V1, you continue and fix the problem airborne.

If the runway is so long that you still have plenty left under all conditions, then V1 doesn't really exist, but for consistency it is considered to occur at the same time as Vr. You say "V1-rotate" in one breath, and after that you are also going flying.

You can always debate unlikely catastrophic control failures and whether it would better to stay on the ground and go off the end of the runway, but for training/sim purposes, if you hear "V1" you are going flying. Period.

You would have failed any airline checkride.

Just to get a little technical, there is a 1 second (recognition time interval) between Vef and V1

After V1 we are going flying. End of story.

i agree with most of the posts on here. before v1 you stop it on the ground. after v1 you take it in the air. there are some very rare circumstances where you would stop on the runway if you could, even after v1. like the crj that had the gld deploy just after v1. i would have done the same thing they did and get it stopped on the ground. there would be no way in hell i would try and take a crj into they air with all the spoilers and gld deployed.. you would crash before you made it 50 ft up. this however is the exception. i know a few captains who will only abort for a few things once they get to 120kts, even if that is less than v1. the speeds are there for a reason, but keep in mind the situation. engine fires are no big deal, you go.

i agree with what everyone is saying so far. however, an engine fire light could mean anything. i do not know how serious the fire is. if it is a fuel fire, my extinquishers may not work. if i go airborne, i may not get back down. Obviously, on a shorter runway, it is a different story. i would not have stayed on the ground for anything else....just the fire light.

At and after V1 you are going flying end of story, High Energy Abort are no fun and you may not have the ability to stop on the runway, at such a great energy state you might smoke the breaks cause a fire with hot breaks any number of things also even if the runway is 14,500 long like rick said for the sake of consistency you want to keep it Standard, that long runway when contaminated with snow ice or water may not seem all that long in certain instances, Personally I am going flying and landing at a much lower energy state...Bottom Line is YOU Go after V1.. if you disregard this you may have to do the Song and Dance to your company and the Feds..

Fly Safe yall

Thats why we make Good and Informed briefing..

yeah, but you wont be going flying at all if the gld and spoilers pop up on the wings,, you cant say that no matter what i am taking the plane in the air after v1. you would definantly kill everyone on board if you did. i will try and look up the incident and post it here. they talked about it in our recurrent class. spoilerons, spoilers, inbd and outbd glds popped up right after v1. lucky enough the guys had enough runway to stop. like i said earlier, they would have never made it 50 ft before it stalled and came back down.

the runway was clean and clear. my decision would have been different on a contaminated runway. these are all factors i took into consideration. however, if you want to throw more scenarios into the mix. what if my engine had exploded into a ball of flames?? i still have the same engine light. does the v1 we fly, end of story still apply. these are all extreme cases, but my point is the fire light could mean anything.

But you cannot have different procedures for different runways. V1 is V1 is V1. Short or long runway. If you start saying you'll abort after V1 because the runway is REALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLY long then "standard" goes out the window and brings "safety" with it.

Don't worry, aviation has a perfect record when it comes to this, they've never left one UP there. LOL! :D :p

Ah Ha I agree how ever thats very rare for GLD to deploy and I am just trying to keep it standard how ever I do know that not every situation can be coverd in the books.. how ever if you know anything about operations risk management and Training, you can see why its beaten into our heads that you go after V1 the situation with the GLD deploying effectively made those guys Test Pilots, something I hope to GOD I never have to deal with

Fly Safe Yall

As mentioned before, you would have busted a type ride aborting at/after V1. If the airplane is flyable, as it was in the scenario you mentioned, you go. It's poor muscle memory training if you plan to move up to bigger and better equipment to try and decide what to do after that point. That's why V1 is there.

"Is my engine really on fire?" There go another 500 feet.
"If the engine's on fire, the extinguishers might not work once we're airborne." One thousand feet.
"I think this runway's long enough to abort, even though we're above V1." Fifteen hundred feet.
"Yeah, let's go ahead and abort." Now you're 2000 feet further down the runway and doing who-knows-what-speed more than V1.

Get my point?

If it turns out to be a short in the sensor, then it is YOU who will be putting all of your passengers in extreme danger by aborting past V1 (and possibly fighting for your certificates as a result). As others have stated, all rules in aviation are written in blood. There is not a single red or yellow annunciator on my plane that I would abort for beyond V1.

i agree with you 100%. this was a very RARE and almost Impossible scenario, but it did happen. however keeping it standard that day would have spelt disaster. a good pic can weed out the "ok we can handle this" from the "we wont make it in the air". and like you said in 99.9999999% of the time you take it into the air. even if the engine blew up, or caught on fire or whatever, the plane is built to fly single engine, and i seriously doubt the plane couldn't last the 20 minutes it would take to secure the engine, and bring it back around for landing.

even if that sensor is saying

"FLT SPLRS DEPLOYED"
"GLD DEPLOYED"
"GLD UNSAFE"

i am not trying beat this to death but you guys have to also think.. if all those things popped up just after v1 i think your certificate would be the last thing you would be worrying about.

I totally agree with you.. I guess thats where Capt Authority comes in.. oh and Thinking outside the BOX

If these messages showed up and there was no accompanying deceleration or airspeed stagnation (as we could reasonably expect if the spoilers popped on takeoff) I'd probably still go.

You are correct, in the event of a spoiler/gld deployment, things change, but for any kind of engine fire (I should have been a little clearer), the plane goes in the air past V1.

There is no concrete right or wrong answer. This scenario, like so many, is not black and white...only shades of gray.

This is why experience is so important and why Captains make the big bucks!:D

There have been cases of successful rejected takeoffs after V1 because in the captain's judgement, the aircraft either would not sustain flight, or getting airborne would be worse than the consequences of a high speed reject. (Note: If you do find yourself at the end of the long green table without a chair and a glass of water over a reject after V1, your answer had better state something like the previous sentence. That in your judgement as captain, the aircraft was not going to fly, or if it did manage to get airborne, it wasn't going to stay there long.) The spoiler problem mentioned above, and any kind of fire in the fuselage come to mind.

Likewise, rejecting prior to V1 does not necessarily guarantee you'll stop prior to rolling off the pavement. Windshear, for example could make is so you could never get airborne on that particular takeoff attempt, and you might not reach V1 until you have 100 feet of runway left.

Keep in mind that there is usually a very small split, if any, between V1 and VR, so we are quibbling about something that has an unbelievably small chance of happening...

It's been a long time since I last flew with a Captain that could think outside the box...that's a little bit scary. I'm a pretty-sharp Captain-in-training, I think, but I don't have the experience to make some of the calls these guys should have been able to.

Just in response to the engine fire thing...Engine fire = Engine burning Jet A and producing thrust. If you can't put it out, so what? Worse case the engine burns to the fuse bolts and it falls off...oh well, good thing I only need one anyways. Nothing about a Fire light ever means you can't make it to pattern altitude and fly a normal downwind to a visual or ILS...Abort after V1 and now you have a fire AND a high-speed abort...bad juju.

From The Turbine Pilot's Flight Manual:

"V1: Takeoff Decision Speed

Let's start with V1, takeoff decision speed. Simply put, it is the "go or no-go" speed. If an abnormality occurs before V1 is reached, takeoff is to be immediately aborted. If an engine failure or other abnormality occurs after V1 is attained, takeoff is continued and any problem is treated in flight. Most airline and corporate flight departments have historically used V1 speeds based upon "balanced field length" for their particular aircraft. If an engine failure occurs exactly at V1, the distance required to abort the takeoff and stop is the same as the distance required to continue the takeoff. In familiar multiengine terms, this means that accelerate-go distance equals accelerate-stop distance."

In your example, you got the engine fire indication right at V1. Therefore, it would not only be legal, but also prudent to abort the takeoff.

Furthermore, in my first Captain PC, the examiner started a discussion by asking whether or not there were any circumstances in which I would consider aborting a takeoff after V1. After quite a bit of discussion, it was decided that under specific conditions, you might in fact use your best judgment and decide to abort the takeoff. It's the reason that airplanes aren't flown solely by computers, and that is what Captain's Emergency Authority is for.

In a Saab 340, with at least 10,000ft of runway left, with a possible engine fire, and no other extenuating circumstances - I'd venture to say that I absolutely would abort the takeoff. If it were a B747, with only 7,000ft of runway left - that would be a different story.

I'm kinda weary about any of our A-models actually flying if we had an V1 engine failure w/o a autocoarsen on a hot humid day, yikes!

If you get the indication at V1, you are past it by the time you react. If you hear "vee" from the non-flying pilot, you go with a few exceptions.

the problem with that is you know the plane will fly, its one of the things that is practices ad-nausum in the sim, you might have some explaining to do after that one

Hence my log in name ----- Past V1 ----- I am beyond the point of return!!!

I can't find the reference again, but the FAA says that the "Vee-One" call should be made so that when the words "Vee-One" are completed, you should be exactly at V1.

IMO the only reason to abort after V1 is a stuck elevator. We practiced that in the sim. I'd rather take a nose dive off the pier in LGA then try to bring back the plane using trim.

He was talking about a Saab. In most jets, sure the pod is made to separate. If the engine burns off a Saab, the wing will also.

Seems that everyone has their own views and points but I believe that it is a situational event. On my type ride I made an abort 20 kts above V1 due to a control failure. As I said this was on a type ride. This issue also arose with the 737 that had a piece of asphalt lodge in the elevator during t/o. They tried to take off after the F/O informed the captain that the controls were jammed. V1 means go in just about every scenario but there are exceptions.

Lots of other reasons...dual engine fire, loss of thrust, bird strikes, windshear, spilled coffee in your lap, cell phone rings...don't limit yourself. :D

So noted...So in a Saab you can't pull closed before the wing burns off?

Here's an example of an abort after V1. I realize it's not an RJ or T-prop, but illustrative of the point:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS8slRy3EMA