Fly an airplane at a set attitude, airspeed, and power setting, and it does precisely what it is supposed to—every time. This book tells why and how “flying by the numbers” works, and gives the flight-tested numbers for precision performance in 27 of America's favorite small aircraft. For aircraft not included in this list, the book provides exact cockpit procedures for nailing down the numbers for any other light airplane.

This book discusses aircraft flight performance, focusing on commercial aircraft but also considering examples of high-performance military aircraft. The framework is a multidisciplinary engineering analysis, fully supported by flight simulation, with software validation at several levels. The book covers topics such as geometrical configurations, configuration aerodynamics and determination of aerodynamic derivatives, weight engineering, propulsion systems (gas turbine engines and propellers), aircraft trim, flight envelopes, mission analysis, trajectory optimisation, aircraft noise, noise trajectories and analysis of environmental performance. A unique feature of this book is the discussion and analysis of the environmental performance of the aircraft, focusing on topics such as aircraft noise and carbon dioxide emissions.