Test Pilot

1. What famous general aviation pilot was flying his own airplane at 7,500 feet over the World Trade Center when the first Boeing 767 struck its target on the morning of September 11, 2001?
2. The Beech Model 35 Bonanza has a V-tail configuration with ruddervators: control surfaces that combine the functions of rudder and elevator. What are elevons, and on what kind of aircraft are they most frequently found?
3. From reader George Shanks: The German Dornier Do 17, Heinkel He 111, and Junkers Ju 88 bombers of World War II did not have tail gunners. What made attacking some of these bombers from the rear uniquely dangerous?
4. True or false? It really does rain cats and dogs.
5. How did SOS come to be used as an international distress signal?
6. A cliché states that a good landing is one from which a pilot can walk away. What is the definition of a great landing?
7. From reader Richard Romaine: When do the two-digit numbers painted on a runway not correlate with that runway’s magnetic direction?
8. Nobel laureate Dr. Alexis Carrel was one of two co-inventors of the artificial (mechanical) heart. The other was famed pilot
   A. Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan.
   B. James “Jimmy” H. Doolittle.
   C. Howard Hughes.
   D. Charles A. Lindbergh.

Test Pilot Answers

1. Oscar-winning actor Cliff Robertson was piloting his Beech Baron at the time. A general aviation activist, he co-founded EAA’s Young Eagles Program and was its original chairman.
2. Elevons are control surfaces that combine the functions of ailerons and elevators. They are most commonly found on delta-wing airplanes that do not have conventional tails.
3. Many of these bombers were equipped with backward-firing flamethrowers. These were more effective at “blinding” attacking pilots by coating their windshields with black oil than setting their aircraft on fire.
4. True. Animals have been picked up by tornadoes, lifted into the bellies of thunderstorms, and then deposited along with rain some distance away. More common, however, is when it rains frogs and turtles.
5. Following the introduction of wireless telegraphy (radio), it was decided that an uninterrupted transmission of 3 dots, 3 dashes, and 3 dots would be the international distress signal, chosen only because of the simplicity of the sequence. It is coincidental that the dots and dashes—when separated—represent the letters S, O, and S in Morse code.
6. A great landing is one after which the airplane is still usable.
7. When the runway is on a U.S. aircraft carrier. The number painted on the bow end of the flight deck (runway) is the hull number of the ship. For example, “68” is painted on the bow end of the runway on the USS Nimitz (CVN 68).
8. The answer is D. In 1935, Lindbergh and Carrel developed an external pump that could be used to sustain blood circulation during heart surgery. Lindbergh also developed a centrifuge to separate blood plasma without damaging it.