Test Pilot

1. Why did the FAA in 1962 move all air route traffic control centers away from metropolitan areas?

2. True or false? An air traffic control clearance is required to enter Class D airspace.

3. What American World War II fighters were sometimes called “Flying Pinball Machines”?

4. How did Delta Air Lines get its name?

5. True or false? The world record for the highest skydive is held by Felix Baumgartner, who began his freefall from an altitude of 127,852 feet on October 14, 2012.

6. A pilot is in cruise flight and applies right rudder-pedal pressure to induce a skid. This temporarily causes the vertical speed indicator to show a descent, the altimeter to show an altitude loss, and the indicated airspeed to decrease. These instrument errors are caused by

A. a blocked left static port.
B. a blocked right static port.
C. an open alternate static source.
D. both static ports are blocked.

7. From reader Robert Pripps: Name two well-known U.S. multiengine production airplanes that incorporate a control wheel (as opposed to a control stick) and have left-hand throttles for the pilot in command.

8. A pilot boarding his airplane sees a bolt of lightning in the distance. The associated thunderclap is heard 18 seconds later. The distance to the thunderstorm is approximately _____ miles.

Test Pilot Answers

1. There was fear during the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union that an atomic bomb might be dropped on one or more major U.S. cities. Air traffic control centers were moved away from large cities to prevent the major disruption of air traffic that could result from such an attack.

2. False. Establishing two-way communication, not a clearance, is required to enter Class D airspace. A clearance is required, however, to enter Class A and B airspace.

3. Certain Bell P–63 Kingcobras had armored windshields and armor-plated surfaces. They were flown by onboard pilots and used as targets for trainee gunners aboard B–17s. When the frangible bullets hit the aircraft (and broke apart on impact), special lights on the aircraft would flash to let the trainee know he had hit his target.

4. Delta began life in the Mississippi River Delta in 1925 as the world’s first crop-dusting operation.

5. False. Records are made to be broken. Two years and two weeks later, Alan Eustace, a 60-year-old retired Google executive, began his freefall from an altitude of 135,899 feet.

6. B. During such a skid, some ram air pressure enters the left static source. This normally is countered by reduced pressure sensed by the right static source on the “downwind” side of the airplane. But when the right source is blocked, ram air entering the left source “pressurizes” the static system. This causes the instruments to sense and “believe” that atmospheric pressure has increased.

7. The Lockheed P–38 Lightning and the Boeing B–29 Superfortress. (The B–29 has three sets of throttles, one set on the left for the aircraft commander, one on the right for the co-pilot, and a third set for the aft-facing flight engineer.)

8. At sea level, sound travels approximately 1 mile every 5 seconds (1,100 feet per second). The thunderstorm, therefore, is 3.6 miles distant. (18 seconds divided by 5 seconds per mile equals 3.6 miles.)