Test Pilot

GENERAL

1. From reader Bill Rimer: Grumman began the Gulfstream line of business aircraft. What was the first luxurious, postwar corporate aircraft built by Grumman?
2. From reader George Shanks: Pilots riding as passengers on an aircraft (especially on company business) often are said to be deadheading. How did this term originate?
3. From reader Jeff Pardo: While cruising at 7,500 feet at night, a pilot notices red, green, and white lights passing above his aircraft. He also notices a flashing blue light. What does this mean?
4. For instrument-rated pilots: Many ILS approaches incorporate an outer or middle compass locator (NDB). What would be the anticipated Morse code identifiers for the outer locator serving the Livermore ILS (ILVK) and the middle locator serving the Burbank ILS (IBUR)?
5. What is the difference between TCAS (traffic alert and collision avoidance system) and TCAD (traffic alert and collision avoidance device)?
6. What was Piper's first four-place airplane, and when was it introduced?
7. Who was the first pilot to fly an airplane over both the North and the South poles?
8. From reader Dave Shaw: Like airplanes, dirigibles lose weight during flight because of fuel burn. This required pioneer airship crews to either vent lifting gas (helium, for example) or add weight to maintain equilibrium. Often the choice was to add water. What was the source of this water?

MULTIPLE CHOICE

9. During cruise flight, the static ports of an airplane become clogged with ice, but pitot heat prevents the same from happening to the pitot tube. During a subsequent descent, indicated airspeed will be
   1. less than it ordinarily would be.
   2. more than it ordinarily would be.
   3. normal.
   4. erratic.
10. What happens when a person lands in the Arctic, for example, and is exposed to a temperature of minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit?
    1. Breath freezes during exhalation and makes a soft hissing noise.
    2. Eyelashes freeze together.
    3. A 5-knot wind induces frostbite in 30 seconds.
    4. All of the above.
11. The current world altitude record for a turbine-powered (jet) airplane was achieved in a
    1. Lockheed Aurora.
    2. Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird.
    3. MiG-25 Foxbat.
    4. North American X-15A.

TRUE OR FALSE

12. Many pilots and sailors have reported a green flash that occurs just as the last remnant (upper limb) of the sun sets below the horizon. Such a green flash is a myth.
13. When looking at an attitude indicator during upright level flight, the top half of the presentation is blue and the bottom half is brown. On some attitude indicators, however, the brown and blue colors are reversed.
14. A pilot is pulling out of a dive at 3.8 Gs, the maximum allowable for his aircraft. He simultaneously banks into a turn but is careful not to allow the G meter to indicate more .han 3.8 Gs. He has unwittingly exceeded the allowable G load for the aircraft.

TEST PILOT ANSWERS

1. The Grumman Mallard, an amphibious aircraft with tricycle landing gear that was a scaled-down version of the Grumman Albatross.
2. Deadheading originated with the theater when a deadhead was someone admitted without buying a ticket. He was not included in the revenue tally because "the dead cannot reach into their pockets." From the book Why Do We Say It?
3. A flashing blue light indicates that air-to-air refueling is taking place.
4. LV and UR. The two-letter identifiers for outer and middle compass locators are typically the second and third letters and the third and fourth letters of the localizer identifier, respectively.
5. Both provide pilots with the altitude and distance of target or "threat" aircraft, but only TCAS provides the relative bearing of such aircraft and, in most cases, resolution advisories (suggested maneuvering).
6. The short-wing Piper PA-16 Clipper. It was introduced in 1949 and was a slightly larger version of the Piper PA-15 Vagabond.
7. Bernt Balchen. Although Adm. Richard Byrd was first to fly over both poles, he was not the pilot. Floyd Bennett and Bernt Balchen flew him over the North Pole and South Pole, respectively.
8. The water was obtained by condensing it from engine exhaust. Incredibly, this by-product of burning hydrocarbon fuel weighs more than the fuel itself. (Contrails are an example of water condensing from jet exhaust.)
9. (b) During descent, static pressure normally increases to inhibit expansion of the bourdon tube inside the airspeed indicator. Without this increase in sensed static pressure, the tube expands more than it should, and this results in a higher-than-normal airspeed indication.
10. (d) Adm. Richard Byrd wrote about these consequences in his book Little America.
11. (c) Alexander Fedotov flew a Soviet E-266M (a MiG-25M) to an altitude of 123,524 feet on August 31, 1977, a record that has yet to be broken. (The much higher-flying X-15A was rocket-powered.)
12. False. The green flash, which on rare occasions can be blue, is caused by the prismatic effect of the atmosphere and is most often seen when the sun sets behind a clear and sharply defined horizon.
13. True. Many older Chinese and Soviet attitude indicators are colored this way because they do not have a linkage to invert (or reverse) the pitch indication (as with most attitude indicators). Such a gyro is essentially a ball fixed in space; the aircraft moves about the ball. (Refer to the photo on p. 77 of January Pilot.)
14. True. When rolling into a turn, the wing moving up produces more lift than the wing moving down. This wing, therefore, becomes more heavily loaded (more Gs) than the other even though the load on the rest of the structure does not change.

Visit the author's Web site ( www.barryschiff.com).