Since the early days of powered flight, aircraft performance has been a mainstay of the pilot-training process. By the time pilots reach the left seat of a turbine-powered airplane they understand how their aircraft perform, or at least they believe they do.
Nat Iyengar, a training captain at Cleveland-based Flight Options, suggests, however, that this is not always the case. He says, “Aircraft performance, especially takeoff performance, is a horribly misunderstood subject.” Rich Boll, a training captain at Koch Business Holdings in Wichita, agrees: “There is probably more confusion in corporate aviation about performance than any other area of aircraft operations.”
Iyengar elaborated, “There are misconceptions that have been passed down through training over the years, and these misconceptions just snowball. We learn all about Part 25 performance and limitations in training. But then you get one instructor who gives you one idea of what to do [in the real world] and another who tells you something else.”
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