Performance of Light Aircraft - Library of Flight

Pilots, aviation students, kitplane builders, aircraft fleet operators, and aeronautical engineers can all determine how their propeller-driven airplanes will perform, under any conditions, by using the step-by-step bootstrap approach introduced in this book. A few routine flying maneuvers (climbs, glides, a level speed run) will give you the necessary nine numbers. High-school-level calculations then give you performance numbers with much greater detail and accuracy than any other method or manual—for your individual aircraft!

Many practical flying topics, concepts that will make you a safer and more efficient pilot, are found in this book for the first time. Among them:

As you bank to begin turning around at high altitude in a canyon, your airplane starts descending toward the rocks below! What should your first response be?

The Steady Maneuvering Charts found in this book give you a full and graphical picture of the several competing factors you need to understand. For precision flying, you need to know your airplane's drag characteristics. A few glides, and a few minutes with your calculator, will let you find two numbers needed to uncover your airplane's drag polar. The cruise performance section of this book includes unique "scaling rules" that let you take a section of a cruise performance table (for one weight, one altitude) and extend it to cover other altitudes or other weights. Should you take off uphill into the wind or downhill with the wind? This book shows you quickly how to figure out which way to direct your airplane for any strength wind.

Using the bootstrap approach, and other calculation aids explained in simple terms, this book will let you accurately predict your airplane's V speeds as well as its rates or angles of climb or descent at any airspeed, any weight, any density altitude, wings banked or wings level, full or partial throttle. This book gives you in-depth understanding of the performance of light aircraft.