Although not the best turbocharged airplane ever made, the 231 (bottom) is nonetheless a perfect test case for comparison against a like, normally aspirated model (201, top). In raw speed, the 231 rocks, but that doesn’t always mean shorter trips.

by Paul Bertorelli

Logically, the concept of turbocharging ought to be a slam dunk for piston airplanes. Even modest little cruisers operate up where the air gets thin and where engine performance sags into what can generously be called anemic. Turbocharging fixes that. It stands a downward trending performance graph on its ear and makes high-speed, high-altitude flight where the air is smooth a clear and effortless something-for-nothing tradeoff. Everyone should have turbocharging.

Yeah, right. The ugly reality is that turbocharging—for all its benefits—has the significant drawback of being somewhat unreliable, expensive to maintain and in some models, its supposed performance gains are unimpressive. One reason for that is that, historically, manufacturers…