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Test Pilot

MATCHING

Everyone knows that a Piper J-3 is a Cub. What are the names of the following Piper singles and twins?

1. PA-18 a. Apache/Aztec
2. PA-20 b. Archer II
3. PA-22 c. Arrow III
4. PA-23 d. Cherokee, Cruiser, Flite Liner
5. PA-24 e. Cheyenne III/400
6. PA-28-140 f. Comanche
7. PA-28-151 g. Dakota
8. PA-28-181 h. Malibu/Malibu Mirage
9. PA-28-236 i. Navajo/Chieftain
10. PA-28R-201 j. Pacer
11. PA-30 k. Seminole
12. PA-31 l. Seneca
13. PA-34 m. Super Cub
14. PA-38 n. Tomahawk
15. PA-42 o. Tri Pacer/Colt
16. PA-44 p. Twin Comanche
17. PA-46 q. Warrior

TRUE OR FALSE

  1. Airplanes have been equipped with water skis.
  2. There is no minimum age for a pilot wanting to fly from Seattle to Miami in a powered aircraft with an empty weight of 250 pounds.
  3. A pilot practicing steep turns in smooth air encounters a short, turbulent bump at the completion of 360 degrees of turn. This means that he has maintained altitude during the turn.
  4. A pilot is executing an instrument approach to an airport obscured by dense fog. The error resulting from using an incorrect altimeter setting that is too low is more dangerous than using an incorrect altimeter setting that is too high.

GENERAL

  1. How did the Jenny, the famed trainer of World War I, get its name?
  2. How can a pilot tell the difference between the aural Morse code identifier of a DME transmitter and the same Morse code identifier of the collocated VOR transmitter?
  3. Some researchers contend that Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd and his pilot, Floyd Bennett, did not get to the North Pole on their famous flight of May 9, 1926. If this contention is correct, who was the first to fly over the pole and in what aircraft?
  4. What causes a reciprocating engine to backfire?
  5. Reader Rob Edward asks: Pilots know that a VOR is a "VHF omni-directional range." What is a range?
  6. Reader Thomas J. Nagorski asks: What is the difference between a turbocharger and a supercharger?
  7. Why might jogging reduce a pilot's tolerance for high Gs?

BRAINTEASER

  1. From reader Chris Fisher: A pilot in an airplane with a true airspeed of 200 knots flies from A to B under the influence of a 50-knot tailwind. The same wind is encountered on the return leg from B to A. Trouble is, the distance between A and B is unknown. Assuming an instantaneous turnaround over B, what is the average groundspeed for the flight?

ANSWERS

  1. m
  2. j
  3. o
  4. a
  5. f
  6. d
  7. q
  8. b
  9. g
  10. c
  11. p
  12. i
  13. l
  14. n
  15. e
  16. k
  17. h
  18. True. In 1950, the Navy contracted a Delaware firm to conduct flight tests and sea trials of an SNJ and a Piper PA-11 equipped with water skis (later called hydroskis). The purpose was to make it possible to take off from and land on a 120-foot-long raft made of balsa (dubbed the U.S.S. Balsawood). Although not necessarily practical, the tests were successful.
  19. True. This is according to FAR Part 103, which deals with ultralight vehicles.
  20. False. Wake turbulence descends behind an airplane. The bump felt by the pilot was the result of flying through his own wake at some point below the altitude at which the wake was generated.
  21. False. When using an altimeter setting that is too low, the altimeter indicates a lower-than-actual altitude. In other words, the aircraft is above the indicated altitude.
  22. The aircraft was officially designated as a Curtiss JN-4D, but pilots preferred to call it a Jenny.
  23. The DME identifier is transmitted at approximately 30-second intervals, only once for every three or four VOR identifiers.
  24. The "second" flight to the North Pole was made three days after the Byrd flight by Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth, and Umberto Nobile in the Italian-built dirigible Norge.
  25. The fuel-air mixture in the induction system is ignited by gases that are still burning in a cylinder when its intake valve opens.
  26. A range is a line of direction, a term borrowed from nautical navigation. The pilot of a ship visually aligns two objects (such as a pair of buoys) and steers along this line.
  27. A turbocharger is exhaust driven, and a supercharger is mechanically driven.
  28. Jogging tends to lower blood pressure, which can reduce high-G tolerance.
  29. 187.5 knots, irrespective of the distance between A and B. To verify that this is so, determine the out and return times required to fly any arbitrarily selected distance. Then use the total time required to fly the round-trip distance to determine average groundspeed.
Barry Schiff
Barry Schiff
Barry Schiff has been an aviation media consultant and technical advisor for motion pictures for more than 40 years. He is chairman of the AOPA Foundation Legacy Society.

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