Test Pilot

GENERAL

1. What is the purpose of bleeding the brakes?
2. When requesting a weather briefing six or more hours before departure, a pilot should ask for a(n) _____ briefing. Within a few hours of departure, he should ask for a(n) _____ briefing, and when asking for an update near the time of departure, he should ask for a(n) _____ briefing.
3. One of the most popular engines of World War I and succeeding years was the Curtiss OX-5 engine that powered the Curtiss JN-4 Jenny. Why was it called an OX-5?
4. A pilot maintains altitude in straight-and-level flight while decelerating on a compass heading of 360 degrees. As a result, the conventional (wet) compass will _____.
5. What is tire creep?
6. Airbus was established in 1970 as a consortium of French, German, and, later, Spanish, and British companies. Its first production airplane was an Airbus _____. It first flew in 1972. Five years later, _____ _____ became the first U.S. airline to operate the aircraft.
7. Estimate the number of fatal aircraft accidents during the past 10 years caused by pilot incapacitation because of a cardiac episode.
8. From reader Jeff Pardo: There are numerous modern airplanes with variable-geometry wings. What airplane allowed its pilot to increase wing area by more than 50 percent without using leading- or trailing-edge flaps or devices?

MULTIPLE CHOICE

9. Density altitude increases by about _____ feet for each 1 degree Celsius of ambient air temperature above standard temperature at a given pressure altitude.
   1. 120
   2. 160
   3. 200
   4. 240
10. If the reported wind direction is 45 degrees off the runway heading, the headwind component and crosswind component are equal and about _____ percent of the reported wind speed.
    1. 50
    2. 60
    3. 70
    4. 80
11. The minimum turning distance (while taxiing) provided in pilot's operating handbooks usually represents the turning radius of the
    1. nosewheel.
    2. outside main landing gear.
    3. outside wing tip.
    4. outside edge of horizontal tail surface.

TRUE OR FALSE

12. Recovery from a stall should always be executed, in part, by reducing back-pressure on the control wheel or pushing it somewhat forward.
13. When flying VFR above Flight Level 290 in controlled airspace over the United States where there is no Class A airspace, it would be appropriate for eastbound and westbound VFR pilots to cruise at FL300 and FL320, respectively.
14. A flock of migrating birds visually senses and corrects for wind drift by crabbing into a crosswind to maintain an approximately direct track toward its destination.

ANSWERS

1. Bleeding removes air entrapped in hydraulic fluid (detectable by soft or spongy brakes). Fluid is bled from the brake system until bubbles are no longer detected.
2. Outlook, standard (or full), abbreviated
3. The most commonly accepted explanation is that the Curtiss Model O engine was introduced in 1912 and that an improved version was called the O+. The plus sign somehow got rotated 45 degrees, resulting in the OX. Further refinements led to the OX-2, OX-3, OX-4, and OX-5.
4. The compass remains stationary. It would turn southerly if the heading was 90 or 270 degrees (in the Northern Hemisphere). If accelerating on these headings, the compass would turn northerly (in accordance with the acronym ANDS: accelerate north, decelerate south).
5. It is the tendency of an underinflated tire to rotate slowly (creep) around the wheel hub during the instant of touchdown and before wheel spin occurs. Over time, it can shear off the inflation valve and cause the tire to burst on touchdown. A mark on the tire and an adjacent point on the wheel allow a pilot to see tire creep.
6. A300, Eastern Airlines
7. There were 10, an average of one per year.
8. The 1931 French-built Makhonine monoplane had telescoping wings. The outer portion of each wing telescoped in and out of the inner portion on rollers. With wings outstretched to 69 feet, the 480-horsepower single had a top speed of 155 mph. Rolling in the wings to 43 feet increased speed by 32 mph.
9. (a) Each degree Fahrenheit affects density altitude by about 70 feet.
10. (c) For example, if the wind speed is 30 knots, the crosswind and headwind components are each 21 knots.
11. (c) In the case of some long airplanes with comparatively short wings, the tail could have the largest turning radius.
12. False. That is the correct procedure for a wing stall, but recovery from a tailplane stall caused by structural icing on the horizontal stabilizer requires pulling back on the control wheel.
13. True. VFR operations are allowed above FL180 over Hawaii because there is no Class A airspace there.
14. Ornithologists cannot answer this question because a flock's exact destination (course) at any given point of observation is not known with certainty.

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