GENERAL
1. We learn in meteorology that melting is to freezing as evaporation is to _______.
2. What is the most significant difference between a restricted area and a warning area?
3. From Soaring: In 1941 the U.S. Army called for proposals from airframe manufacturers to build training gliders. Why did none of the larger, established manufacturers respond?
4. While receiving in-flight aviation weather advisories, a pilot is advised of a convective sigmet, a sigmet, and an airmet applicable to these areas, respectively: Flathead Valley (Montana), Sand Hills (Nebraska), and the Big Horn Basin (Wyoming). If a pilot is unfamiliar with these areas, how is he supposed to know where these advisories apply?
5. From reader Dan Murphy: Under what conditions is unusable fuel usable?
6. What is a tandem airplane?
7. Winds are said to back and veer. What do these terms mean?
8. From reader Nolan Beck: During World War II, American and British flight crewmembers often referred to the conservatory and the dust bin. What were these?
MULTIPLE CHOICE
9. From reader Jeff Pardo: An airliner is cruising at Flight Level 350 (about 35,000 feet) and the outside air temperature is minus 55 degrees Celsius. Cabin temperatures are kept comfortable by
a. AC generators that power electrical heaters.
b. the heat of friction that is generated by an aircraft flying at more than two-thirds the speed of sound.
c. air conditioners.
d. exhaust shrouds that heat the incoming air (much the way carburetor air is heated).
10. From reader Richard Wilsher: The designation, Air Force One, was first used in
a. 1948.
b. 1953.
c. 1958.
d. 1963.
11. From reader John Brook: The first recorded complaint about aircraft noise was made in
a. 1897.
b. 1907.
c. 1917.
d. 1927.
TRUE OR FALSE
12. From reader Dan Canin: The first motion picture footage taken from an airplane during flight did not occur until 1918, the last year of World War I.
13. A pilot stands in front of a single-engine airplane and notes that the face of each propeller blade faces forward and that the back of each propeller blade faces rearward.
14. From reader Rick Ray: On September 13, 1985, the pilot of a McDonnell Douglas F–15A Eagle shot down a satellite that was orbiting the Earth.
TEST PILOT ANSWERS
1. Condensation. Melting and freezing are changes of state between ice and water. Evaporation and condensation are changes of state between water and gas (water vapor).
2. A warning area is essentially the same as a restricted area but is 3 nm or more from the coast of the United States.
3. The Army prohibited established aircraft manufacturers from building gliders, although this inexplicable prohibition was quickly removed.
4. He can refer to the Geographical Area Designator Map (Figure 7-1-4) in the Aeronautical Information Manual, which might not be immediately available. Also, the map is difficult to read.
5. Unusable fuel is the fuel remaining when the first evidence of power interruption occurs under the most adverse fuel-feed condition (such as during an unusually steep nose-high or -low attitude). Otherwise, unusable fuel usually is usable during normal conditions (but don’t count on it).
6. It is an airplane with two or more sets of wings of essentially the same area placed one in front of the other (not to be confused with a tandem-seated airplane).
7. A backing wind shifts in a counterclockwise direction. It is the opposite of a veering wind that shifts in a clockwise direction.
8. The conservatory was slang for any power-operated, glass-enclosed machine-gun turret. The dust bin was a belly-mounted, rear-gun turret (usually on enemy aircraft).
9. (c) Air used to pressurize the cabin is bled from the compressor sections of turbofan engines. This compressed air is so hot that it must be refrigerated to lower its temperature to a comfortable level.
10. (b) This was the result of President Eisenhower’s airplane entering the same airspace as an Eastern Airlines airplane with the same flight number (8610).
11. (c) An irate resident of Lloyd’s Neck, New York, complained to the Navy about noise made by early morning training flights. This letter is on display at the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island.
12. False. The first was taken during a demonstration of a Wright airplane flown in Italy by Wilbur Wright in 1909. The film can be seen online.
13. False. The blade back is the curved portion of the propeller that faces forward and corresponds to the upper surface of a wing; the blade face is the flatter portion of the propeller that faces aft and corresponds to the bottom surface of a wing.
14. True. Maj. Wilbert Pearson Jr. took off from Edwards Air Force Base, climbed at a preprogrammed 65 degrees, pulled 3.8 Gs to 38,100 feet, and then fired an experimental two-stage missile that climbed to an altitude of 345 miles and hit an obsolete satellite.
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