For SAC History Buffs

[Nikos]

What did they do if, during a MITO the aircraft in front of you had a problem and could not get airborne?

[PHall]

What did they do if, during a MITO the aircraft in front of you had a problem and could not get airborne?

The Co-pilot of that aircraft would make the following broadcast on the radio on the control tower frequency,  "XXX knots abort, XXX knots abort, XXX knots abort."

If your airspeed was at XXX knots or higher, you should be ahead of the airplane in trouble and you continued your take off.
If your airspeed was below XXX knots you aborted your takeoff so you wouldn't run into the guy ahead of you.

All SAC aircraft had red scotchlite on the inside of the spoiler panels so that when you deployed the spoilers it could be seen by the airplane behind you.
It was routine that while taxiing in a multi plane cell formation that when the brakes were applied the spoilers would be raised to show the plane behind you that you were slowing down/stopping. This eliminated the need for a radio call to the formation.

[PHall]

I was a SAC KC-135A pilot for many years. Those long runways weren't just for the BUFFs. The tankers used all the runway and then some for EWO takeoffs if necessary. Many times saw the departure end of the runway still on the ground with only 1500 feet left and just starting to rotate the airplane. MITOs were sooo much fun! Been searching for a heavy weight  MITO video with water burning BUFFs and Tanks. So far, no luck. There were some training videos of this but I guess they never made it to the digital age. ((MITO - minimum interval (15second) takeoff))

Being 14th out of 20 in a MITO with all water burning aircraft was a semi-controlled thrill. (B-52D's and KC-135A's @ March)
Much rocking and rolling in IFR conditions because of all of the smoke!

And yes, the over run will support a max gross weight KC-135A during take-off rotation!