032 Aircraft Performance

What Does Aircraft Performance cover?

Aircraft performance is a mixture of theory, calculation, graph and table work. This topic relates directly with Principles of Flight and Mass and Balance and would suggest ensuring a good knowledge of Principles of Flight before attempting this topic.

The subject is split into 3 topic areas which include General Principles, Class B and Class A performance. Class B relates to small general aviation aeroplanes and Class A, which is the primary concern of the subject, relates to commercial aeroplanes.

Each phase of flight is examined from Take-off, through Climb, Cruise, Descent and Landing. The factors that affect performance, the rules and regulations need to be understood, and the student must also be able to work through the various graphs and tables supplied.

The subject requires a minimum of 40 hours teaching, the exam is 2 hours long with 45 questions with each question worth between one and three marks depending on the complexity of the question. Most of the questions are Class A with 24 questions allocated to this category, 12 general principles and the remainder, 9 in Class B.