Comparative Performance of Five Chipmunk Aircraft: An Investigation of the Assumption that the Performance of any Operational Aircraft can be considered to be Representative of that Type of Aircraft

The intention of this paper is to compare the performance of five Chipmunk aircraft, and to investigate the assumption that the performance of any operational aircraft can be considered to be representative of that type of aircraft. All the aircraft were tested, with the same instrument panel fitted, and were weighed in order to determine the variation in weight and centre of gravity. Flight tests were then conducted to investigate the following aspects of performance: turning, climbing, drag, engine power, stalling and spinning. The results, reduced from the readings taken during flight tests, showed that there are two main causes of variation between the performances of the aircraft. First the age and condition of the engine were seen to affect the power dependent aspects of performance. Secondly there was a wide variation of profile drag which was probably due to distortion of the airframes.