But also, it depend on the plane too. If you're in a 747, oen engine out means you still have 75% power of before. So you'll have a better chance than a 777, with 50% power gone, and have lost tha much of yoru lfyign ability. If you're in say an MD-11 or 727 you still have 66% percent of power so you might make it off. Wheras a single is simple. How much braking force can I put down? But you also have reached the takeoff poitn at 10-kts before V1, as by teh tiem an engine fails its too late. But also, if you have failure before V1, you'll stop before teh end of the runway, if not, you're not correctly configured.  One must consider too, if i abort takeoff, and i overrun the runway, what will I hit?

Also, Lou TWA only had 747-100s right?

I thought flying was all about fun.   Thanks for your answers, guys.

What was your strategy then, Lou? Remember any aborted takeoff with some of the mentioned factors included?
I could think of some parts of the pilot thinking 'I hope we get way over V1' (to avoid the need for a decision) while the other parts focus on at least some of the various variables which should be taken into account if something happens below that calculated speed.

Also, we're not speaking about minutes to decide as the plane doesn't stop acceleration when "just" one engine or thing gets into some red limits. So I can see some of the decisions being made as either purely experience driven or done by some magical coin being thrown in milliseconds.
It could well be that some NTSB records show the statistical (only) conclusion that 'get airborne' is the safest way to go when the plane is close to MTOW.
Decision making, that's actually the hard part of the pilot's job, right? They will take him as the one being in responsibility.

Also, as a side note, but not to be read as 'playing smart', those twin engine commercial birds are highly overpowered (looking at the overall available thrust and the weight of the plane) and the simple equation of '50% loss' only shows some relative values, not overall ones.
The requirement is to be able to continue takeoff and climbout with one engine failure at MTOW. Means that the 4 engine ones have to be able to go on 3 and the two engine ones can go with one.
So the 'overpower value' is much bigger on the twins than on the quads.

This lead to the biggest jet engines on a commercial plane, which aren't attached to those big 747 or A380 but can be found on the biggest twin, the 777. One engine of that thing offers more thrust than 8 from the B-52. And the BUFF isn't a lightweight plane at all.
So those 50% thrust from the 777 are, in absolute numbers, a whole bunch of power to operate safely while two of them running gives you a nice climber, like seen on e. g. the 757 too, following the same twin-safety-concept.

When going back to relative values again, we need 3 engines to achieve 100% 'safe available thrust' on e. g. a 747 and 1 engine to do the same on a 777.
If we now add the real amount of engines, we can see 133% 'safe available thrust' being there when all 4 are running on the 747 and 200% when the two of the 777 do this.
Feel free to do the calculations for the BUFF now.  
(the requirement doesn't apply there of course)

Hey, Lou. I would imagine that if there was an engine failure on takeoff, you would just circle around and land,   but what are some possible failures that you would continue on to the destination airport with?  

boeing247 wrote on May 11^th, 2011 at 4:29am:

Ah, I thought that sounded familiar, and yes, it is a great book.

I certainly wouldn't want to be a passenger on that plane, especially as you're going over the Atlantic.  

Did you ever have any experiences like that?

boeing247 wrote on May 13^th, 2011 at 2:31am:

Yeah, I saw that!

In the early days of crossing the north Atlantic using Doppler and low frequency navigation there were many times a precise fix was hard to come by. To aid in the process, the government placed some poor Coast Guard kids out in the north Atlantic and Pacific to help planes and ships make the crossing. I used to get such a kick out of giving these folks a call and hearing how cheerful they were, even though they were getting pounded by rough seas and wind. There were three ships on the east side of the Atlantic ocean that we would talk to, Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. They would try to radar identify you and then give you a fix based on where they thought they were in the ocean. We would send them a Met Report of the winds at our altitude, sky condition and temperature. We had a chart on the plane with a grid system and would use it to plot the fix. It was better than we could do sometimes if the Doppler was not giving a good fix. All this fun ended around 1980.

Fast forward to the late 80’s. Back in the good old days, when flying was fun and more relaxed, I flew with a Captain named Bernie Dunn. We would say, “flying is fun with Bernie Dunn.” Here we are in a 747 crossing the ocean with state-of-the-art INS navigation and Bernie wants to have some fun. He instructs the F/O to give ocean station Charlie a call and get a fix. Now we know full well that these ships have been gone for almost a decade, but it’s time for fun.

The message goes out on the common north Atlantic frequency...” Ocean Station Charlie, Ocean Station Charlie, this is TWA 700 – OVER! No response. After a few minutes we repeat the message... Ocean Station Charlie, Ocean Station Charlie, this is TWA 700 – OVER! The hook is set! After a few seconds comes a reply on the frequency. TWA 700, this is THE CLIPPER 2, there are no ocean stations! With that, Bernie gets on his radio and cups his mouth over the microphone and says... TWA 700 This is Ocean Station Charlie, go ahead with your Met Report. Needless to say everyone on the common radio frequency let loose with roars of laughter at the expense of “THE CLIPPER.”

Lou

More reading...

http://www.uscg.mil/history/webcutters/rpdinsmore_oceanstations.asp
http://www.noreasterpress.com/books/OceanStation.php
This is a cool book with a lot of data...
http://www.archive.org/stream/northatlanticoce00hann#page/n1/mode/2up

CoolP asked if I had Any celebrities on any of my flights?

Over forty years I had a few movie stars and politicians. David Niven, back in the sixties along with a few politicians. I flew Neil Armstrong one time. he was very interesting to talk with. I flew Michael Jackson not once, but twice. Michael would take up all the first class seats with his group. I also had one of Michael's sisters on a flight. Jack Nicholson, Richard Dreyfus, Lisa Minelli, Spiro T. Agnew, John Ashcroft. I flew Chuck Berry twice, once to Lisbon and another time to Saint Louis, both out of KJFK. We also used to fly the Saint Louis Rams football team in a special 727 with a Ram paint job by Nath!  

There were more, but at this time I do not remember who they were.

Lou