Airplane Performance as Influenced by the Use of a Supercharged Engine

The question of the influence of a supercharged engine on airplane performance is treated here in a first approximation, but one that gives an exact idea of the advantage of supercharging. Considered here is an airplane that climbs first with an ordinary engine, not supercharged, and afterwards climbs with a supercharged engine. The aim is to find the difference of the ceilings reached in the two cases. In the case of our figure, the ceiling from 25,000 feet is increased to 37,000 feet, the supercharging maintaining the power only up to 20,000 feet. This makes, in comparison with an engine without supercharging, an increase of about 50 percent.