I’m not real sure what is going on here but the planes in your PDF all have maximum speeds around 300 knots, but on the worksheet 300 knots requires 3900 hp which none of those planes had.
I even made a blank worksheet copy and used the bare minimum numbers to check and changing the propeller and gear ratios does nothing to the required power.
Apart from the problem above, what is the max engine weight I should be looking for? Is it 680lbs?
i forgot. is planned speed cruise speed or top speed?
Is it allowed to use more than two engines? struggling to meet the dB limit and make enough thrust.
bruh. why are you going 300+?
the examples he gave cruises around 260ish. and i chose my target speed of about 200-220 knots, not final.
My 600+ hp i4 has an Engine Out Climb Gradient @ 5000 feet of -36.
I guess that’s bad…
I went balls out and built a 1000hp turbo I6 which has a engine out climb gradient at 5000ft of -132ft/nm…
I sure want to know how that works because it turns green way earlier 
Also, that “Power Need for Planned Speed” is power of both engines combined, right?
and here i am at only 450hp 
OK, so I just realised I left out a very critical piece of information, and I do apologise for this.
The “planned speed” field outputs an approximate maximum true airspeed at sea level. However, the performance figures that you see quoted for the real-world example aircraft on Wikipedia and elswehere are in true airspeed at their optimum altitude; at the high(ish) altitude that these aircraft will operate, the true airspeed will be much, much higher than the calibrated airspeed, which is what the aircraft “feels”, for lack of a better way of putting it. Let me break it down a bit more for you:
Let’s say we have an aircraft that can fly 220 knots at sea level, the calibrated airspeed and the true airspeed will be equal, under ideal atmospheric conditions. Now as the aircraft climbs to a higher altitude, it can still achieve that 220 knots of calibrated airspeed, assuming the engines can still produce the sea-level rated power. However, since both the air density and temperature have dropped as the aircraft climbs higher, the true airspeed starts to increase for a given calibrated airspeed. If this example aircraft is flying at 30,000 feet, and can still maintain 220 knots calibrated airspeed, its true airspeed will be 360 knots.
In future versions of the powerplant calculator (I might even make a revised version in the next day or so), I will include a tab with a chart that converts the planned speed to true airspeeds at different altitudes.
As a guideline, I wouldn’t want to exceed a powerplant (as in, combined engine, gearbox and propeller) weight of 850 pounds each; more than that and you’re starting to severely eat into your useful load. Obviously, less is better, so always strive for the least possible weight!
I should also mention that in the majority of these challenges going forward, it will no longer be possible to both fill the fuel tanks and fill all the seats with standard-weight passengers; this is a common condition in aviation and just something we have to live with on a daily basis, so don’t fret if you find you can only fit five standard-weight passengers into this aircraft with full fuel. Beechcraft themselves quite bluntly say that their King Air 250 can only carry five passengers with full fuel.
Unfortunately for this challenge it is two engines only. As for noise, well, you can go into the red zone if you like, but you do it at the risk of losing points to your competitors.
As a suggestion, if you want to dramatically lower your noise production, consider adding more blades to the propeller and either a) turning it slower, or b) going to a smaller diameter. Real-world aircraft in this size category have up to five blades in their propellers, after all.
Yes. That figure tells you the total amount of power you need to go that fast.
I have 8 blades on each and it still is in the red with noise with 1000 pounds of thrust dangit 
err, I’m stupid so if it’s telling me it needs 3900hp, wtf am I supposed to do? Most of that stuff about true airspeed and calibrated airspeed flew straight over my head.
Correct me if I’m getting this all wrong: the planned airspeed in the spreadsheet is only calibrated airspeed and so will be lower than the true airspeed. The planned speed should be around 250knots or so? Then the power need cell is the amount of power your engine makes after flat rating (if flat rated) multiplied by 2?
On a side note: the engine out climb gradient has decided to be a positive value again 
Im planning something 2250 knot ish so far, seems like the hp figures are pretty fixed.
@MrChips
Is flat-rating turbos a stupid idea and are you doing that MTBF thing you mentioned earlier?
Oh, I can’t wait to see your engines to produce the required 1645741 HP.
Your airspeed is restricted by the power output of both engines combined.
So if you want 300 knots you need 2x1950 = 3900 hp.
When you have 2x450 hp engines your planned speed shoudn’t be higher than 183 knots.
Nothing that 8 octoturbo V16s can’t handle
okay, so my twin 1000hp engines should be just fine 
No, flat-rating turbos isn’t a particularly stupid idea, but if you design your turbocharger with lots of headroom for more boost, it’s kind of stacking two similar things on top of one another.
The updated MTBF calculations were added to the powerplant calculator (and by extension, the simulation itself) in the third round. Notice that we didn’t see any entries run away with the TBO calculation in that round… 
Oh okay then. Even 220knots is rather high then 
