Based on all the

limitations we know, we can now draw the whole flight envelope of our airplane. On
the low speed
side of the domain, we start with the stall speed
in high lift configuration. This configuration
with slats and flaps extended induces a lot of drag, and except when we are close
to the ground for
takeoff and landing, there is no reason to keep it. Above a given altitude or low
speed limit is a stall
speed in clean configuration. As the altitude is increasing, Mach effect becomes
significant and stall is now driven by the shockwave boundary
layer interactions, and CL is limited by
the buffet onset. Then when buffet onset
occurs at Mach optimum, we are at a maximum altitude where our wing can
lift our weight, that's our lift ceiling. At higher speeds, we are
limited by flutter and maximum dynamic pressure
our structure can support. This limit or Mach number
to a given value Mach max or calibrated airspeed
to a value Vc max. This Vc becomes more limiting than Mach max at low altitude. You
must understand that the blue line we have just
drawn is a hard limit, if we exceed it, we may lose control or break the structure
of the airplane. For day-to-day
operations, of course, we want to keep some margins
to this blue line and the operational pilot must stay within the green operational
flight envelope. Between the green domain and the blue line is the
peripheral flight envelope. That envelope is
only explored during flight tests to make
sure one can detect that he has exceeded the safe
domain and also that he can safely recover toward the
operational flight envelope.