Test Pilot

MIX 'N MATCH

Match each of the following famous aircraft with the most appropriate clue:

GENERAL

13. Name the only head of state to become a pilot while holding office.
14. At 9,927 feet msl, Leadville, Colorado, is the most highly elevated airport in the United States. What is the temperature at Leadville when the density altitude there is the same as its elevation (assuming dry air and an altimeter setting of 29.92 inches of Hg)?
15. Why is the abbreviation for coordinated universal time UTC instead of CUT?
16. While flying in the vicinity of an airport, a pilot flies over a marker beacon that transmits a continuous audio identification of two short dots followed by a pause. The white marker-beacon light flashes similarly. What does this signify?
17. Why was it often desirable during World War II for flight crews to include someone who was color deficient?
18. What is the significance of a continental divide?
19. From reader John V. Graff: When was an aircraft first put to military use, and how was it used?

TRUE OR FALSE

20. Thermal runaway is a hazard associated only with Nicad batteries.
21. Rain falling on a windshield creates an optical illusion that leads a pilot to believe that he is higher during a landing approach than he really is.
22. Fred Noonan was one of two men aboard the first civilian flight around the world.

BRAINTEASER

23. Two identical, 500-knot airplanes are flying along the equator in opposite directions at 35,000 feet. (They have already passed each other, so there is no danger of a midair collision.) Assuming that the winds aloft are calm and that each aircraft is identically loaded with payload and fuel, which of the two aircraft has the greater range?

ANSWERS

1. (a) A mammoth Goodyear dirigible that could launch and retrieve airplanes.
2. (g) Jules Verne's huge helicopter as described in The Clipper of the Clouds.
3. (i) President Dwight Eisenhower's Lockheed Constellation.
4. (e) Colonel Paul Tibbets, Jr. flew this B29 to Hiroshima.
5. (f) Charles "Chuck" Yeager's Bell X1.
6. (l) Last dirigible to use hydrogen.
7. (c) President Harry Truman's Douglas DC6.
8. (b) Admiral Richard Byrd's plane to the North Pole.
9. (k) Boeing B17 that escaped unscathed after 25 bombing missions over enemy territory.
10. (j) Built by Ryan Airlines in San Diego.
11. (h) First flight across the United States (Calbraith Rodgers).
12. (d) Wiley Post flew twice around the world in this Lockheed Vega.
13. King Hussein of Jordan.
14. Minus 5 degrees Celsius (or 23 degrees Fahrenheit), which is the standard temperature for an elevation of 9,927 feet msl. Standard temperature for a given elevation is determined by subtracting from 15 degrees Celsius 2 degrees per 1,000 feet of elevation.
15. An advisory committee of the International Telecommunications Union could not decide in 1970 whether to use the English word order, CUT, or the French word order, TUC, so a compromise, UTC, was adopted.
16. It is a back-course marker that indicates the location of the final-approach fix of a back-course ILS approach and the point at which the final-approach descent should begin.
17. As aerial observers, they could detect camouflage based on color-blending deception more easily than crewmembers with normal vision.
18. It is an extreme stretch of high ground (the Rocky Mountains, for example) from each side of which the river systems of a continent flow in opposite directions.
19. A balloon, L'Entreperant, was tethered by the French on June 26, 1794, during the Battle of Fleurus. From this lofty vantage point, a Colonel Coutelle observed the battlefield and directed artillery fire for nine hours.
20. False. Under certain high-load, high-temperature conditions, a lead-acid battery can seriously overcharge and explode.
21. False. Moisture on a windscreen produces unpredictable illusory effects because of the irregular refraction of light caused by the raindrops. Depending on moisture pattern and windscreen shape, a pilot might perceive being higher or lower than he really is.
22. False. Fred Noonan was Amelia Earhart's navigator. Harold Gatty was Wiley Post's navigator and, therefore, was one of the first two men to fly around the world.
23. According to Associate Professor Philip D. Bridges of Mississippi State University, the eastbound aircraft has the greatest range. This is because its velocity with respect to the center of the Earth is greater than the velocity of the westbound airplane, and the increased centrifugal force as it circles the Earth causes it to weigh 0.4 percent less, which results in less drag and greater range (for a given airspeed).