Upon his retirement as a non-routine flight operations captain from a fractional operator in 2015, Dr. Veillette had accumulated more than 20,000 hours of flight experience in 240 types of aircraft—including balloons, rotorcraft, sea plans, glides, war birds, supersonic jets and large commercial transports. He is an adjunct professor at Utah Valley University. In June 2023, he won the prestigious Bill Gunston Technology Writer of the Year Award.
There are moments during every takeoff when an abnormality requires that the pilot make a split-second decision whether to continue or abort a takeoff. Unfortunately the safety margin grows razor thin, if non-existent, when a pilot decides to abort the takeoff nearly at V1 speed, especially on a weight-limited runway length. There are a plethora of reasons why the ``deck is stacked against the pilot'' trying to match the accelerate-stop data generated by the test pilots during certification.
A high-speed rejected takeoff requires the absolute maximum in crew coordination and performance. Identifying who will make the decision to abort and what specific actions will be quickly performed should be clearly specified and practiced long beforehand so that when the event occurs -- unexpectedly and quite suddenly, always -- the crew's reaction is automatic and correct.
On a warm summer evening just after sunset, a Cessna 500 taxied out to the end of Runway 22 at Rawlins, Wyo., Municipal Airport (RWL). The density altitude at high elevation RWL (6,813 feet msl) was nearly 8,200 feet. Loaded with 800 pounds of electronic equipment as cargo and 325 gallons of Jet-A, the airplane had a gross weight of 11,703 pounds. The flight crew determined the required takeoff distance using a dry, level runway with no wind was 6,530 feet; the takeoff runway was 7,008 feet long.
