Test Pilot

1. What song topped the Hit Parade in the late 1950s and had a foreign-language title that—when translated into English—meant “to fly?”
2. One of the most famous aircraft equipped with a canard surface is Burt Rutan’s Voyager. What was the first airplane to have a canard?
3. From reader Bill Menzel: What flight maneuver is known by three similar names, has two basic purposes, and is executed in approximately the same manner?
4. A jet engine was first installed and used to power an airplane in
1. 1910.
2. 1920.
3. 1930.
4. 1940.
5. True or false? On May 25, 1979, the left engine of an American Airlines DC–10 detached from its wing during takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD). The airplane crashed near the end of Runway 32R. Five months later, however, three engines and their pylons detached from a Braniff International Boeing 707 while in flight near Seattle, leaving only one engine remaining.
6. True or false? A scheduled airline flight has never landed on an aircraft carrier.
7. Republic Aviation was an aircraft manufacturer based in Farmingdale, New York, and perhaps best known for its P–47 Thunderbolt, F–84 Thunderjet, and F–105 Thunderchief. What well-known light airplane did it also manufacture?
8. What is a penny plane?

Answers

1. This hit song was one of Dean Martin’s favorites and today is often vocalized by his daughter, popular singer Deana Martin, whose Cessna 310Q is emblazoned across the nose with the title of—you guessed it—Volare (Italian for “to fly”).
2. The 1903 Wright Flyer.
3. The forward slip and sideslip—generically known as slips—are both executed by the application of bottom aileron and top rudder. The forward slip is most commonly used to add drag and lose altitude, while the sideslip is most often used to compensate for a crosswind when landing.
4. The correct answer is A. Romanian Henri Coandă installed a rudimentary jet engine in a biplane that crashed during its first flight.
5. True. One of the pilots was practicing Dutch rolls and allowed the recovery to become so violent that three engines and their pylons were wrenched from their wings. Unable to reach an airport, the airplane crash landed in a large pasture in Snohomish County.
6. True. Can you imagine what the passengers would have thought?
7. Republic manufactured 1,060 of its four-place, 215-horsepower RC–3 Seabee amphibians during 1946 and 1947.
8. It is a rubber band-powered model airplane that weighs no more than a penny.