Everything your aeroplane does, lifting, climbing, accelerating, depends on one quantity you cannot see: air density (the Greek letter rho). Both the wing and the engine live off the mass of air flowing through them. Thin the air out and the wing makes less lift at a given speed, the propeller bites less, and the engine swallows a lighter fuel/air charge, so it makes less power. The aeroplane that leapt off a cold sea-level runway in winter may struggle off a hot mountain strip in summer, even though it is the same machine. Performance planning is the discipline of working out, before you fly, whether the runway and the climb-out are long enough and steep enough for the conditions of the day.
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