Test pilot

1. Where is the world’s largest active, free-standing aircraft hangar?
2. Which of the following does not belong?
   A. king
   B. queen
   C. egg
   D. yoke
3. From reader Rick Ray: What was the only production jet fighter used in combat by the Allies prior to the end of World War II?
4. Numerous World War II airplanes were adorned with nose art consisting of pin-up girls. According to a highly publicized wartime survey, who were the five most popular pin-up girls?
5. From reader John Schmidt: What famous aviator addressed an assembled group by saying, “I know of only one bird, the parrot, that talks, and he can’t fly very high.” Following only those few choice words, he sat down. Who was he?
6. “I was a car dealer when I bought a monoplane in 1911 and taught myself to fly—crashing several times in the process. I became an airshow pilot and joined two other men to begin an airplane company in 1925. The problem was, I wanted to build monoplanes and they preferred biplanes, so I formed my own company in 1927. One of my airplanes was the DC–6. What is my name?”
7. From reader George Shanks: During the Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909, organizers offered Wilbur Wright $15,000 to make a flight of 10 miles over the Hudson River and around the Statue of Liberty. What precaution did he take before circling the statue?
8. What was the first and perhaps only airliner to fly around the world with only one fuel stop and standard fuel tanks?

Test Answers

1. Hangar 375 at San Antonio’s Kelly Air Force Base—affectionately known as “Big Texas”—has an area of 600,000 square feet.
2. The correct answer is C. In the old phonetic alphabet (Able, Baker, Charlie, etc.), King, Queen, and Yoke represented K, Q, and Y. Egg has not been used in any phonetic alphabet.
3. The British Gloster Meteor. Neither the Bell P–59 Airacomet nor the Lockheed P–80 Shooting Star saw combat before the end of the war.
4. Betty Grable (undisputed queen of the wartime pin-ups), Rita Hayworth, Dorothy Lamour, Jane Russell, and Lana Turner.
5. This was the entirety of Wilbur Wright’s speech when being honored by the Aero Club de la Sarthe in France in 1908.
6. His name was Clyde Cessna—not Donald Douglas—and his two partners in the Travel Air Manufacturing Company were Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman. The 1929 Cessna DC–6 (D for design, C for Cessna, and 6 for sixth design) was a four-place, high-wing, closed-cabin monoplane.
7. He fitted his Model A with a canoe underneath the aircraft in case he had to make a landing in the water.
8. In June 1993, An Airbus A340 took off from Paris, flew nonstop to Auckland, New Zealand, refueled, and continued nonstop to Paris.