Nathan Young wrote in message . ..
Glad to hear you made it safely. Probably the best lesson learned is
that the real world performance of a 30 year old plane rarely matches
the numbers in the POH, and that when operating near the edge of the
envelope - there is little margin for error (or Mother Nature).


I'm Curious about something. Everyone says that a 30-year-old
airplane will not perform like when it was a new airplane. However I
never heard anyone explain WHY this is so.

Assuming that a airplane (either a new factory aircraft or 30 year old
trainer) has had it's annual done and engine is up to par (compression
ect..) than why would these values change? An engine close to TBO
will still deliver fuel and power values very close to the POH. The
only source of diminished performance I can think of would be from the
rigging and/or airframe that could be a little out of alignment,
however any large deviations would have to be fixed.

If the performance value of a 30-year-old airplane does not match the
values in the POH for that make/model of aircraft (i.e., performance
values change over time), then I suggest that the FAA needs to address
this issue.