Comparison Tools

Feel like comparing General Aviation aircraft feels alot like comparing Apples and Oranges. Your not the only one, and your right its not very productive. Hopefully being armed with these numbers you’ll be more able to select the right aircraft for the mission.

Aircraft Comparison

With all the different kinds of GA aircraft out their, ranging from single to multi engine, one seat to many seats, its difficult to really compare based upon a true apples to apples approach of what an aircraft can do with respect to performance and efficiency. These Aircraft Comparison tools, tied to the Analytic and Cost tools are intended to cut through the ambiguity and the smoke and mirrors presented in non biased reports.

You should be aware of three main components of the Comparison Page.

1. The “Meat and Potatoes” of each aircraft is presented side by side, any available pictures is presented followed by Analytic and Cost specifications. These numbers are followed by general aircraft characteristics.
2. This tool allows the user to change all numbers on the page tied to aircraft fuel cost, by determining exactly that – the fuel cost.
3. This utility allows the user to take the two aircraft they have selected and take them on a simulated trip. The user gets to select the trip length and the resulting Time, Fuel Burn, and Fuel Cost are printed up for each aircraft. This is a very enlightening tool, as it gives you the estimated fuel cost for a given trip.

 

This website is dedicated to helping our users find true value, particularly where it comes to fuel consumption, the fastest growing cost for General Aviation. It is helpful to know some of the assumptions made as we bring these aircraft down to a “even” playing field, where we can measure there strengths and weakness’s.

• We assume fuel burn and TAS at their generically published speed and burn. For the most part these numbers are computed around 75% BHP and at a close to optimum altitude.
• We also assume for these general calculations that climb and descent will for the most part even themselves out on speed and fuel burn. With that assumption we use the generic TAS and Fuel Burn over the course of a complete trip.
• To further simplify things to a workable model we assume a no wind condition for all comparisons, which results in TAS being equivalent to Ground Speed.