TABLE OF CONTENTS "The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers. He cannot, like the architects, cover his failures with trees and vines. He cannot, like the politicians, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned."
President Herbert Hoover
Aircraft performance analysis is the science of predicting what an aircraft can do, how fast and high it can fly, how quickly it can turn, how much payload it can carry, how far it can go, and how short a runway it can safely use for take-off and landing. Most of the design requirements that a customer specifies for an aircraft are performance capabilities. Therefore, in most cases it is performance analysis that answers the question, "Will this aircraft meet the customer's needs?"
