Test Pilot

GENERAL

1. Arrange the following single-engine aircraft in order of the model year in which they were introduced. If unable to do so, name the first and last two aircraft to be introduced.
   1. American General Tiger
   2. Beechcraft Debonair
   3. Cessna 150
   4. Cessna 172/182
   5. Cessna Cardinal
   6. Lake LA-4 Amphibian
   7. Piper Cherokee
   8. Piper Comanche
2. Estimate within 5,000 pounds the thrust of the world's most powerful jet engine.
3. What pilots routinely take off with their hands off the controls?
4. The pilot of a propeller-driven airplane (piston or turboprop) wants to fly for maximum range. Ignoring the effect of climbing and winds aloft, why should he select a relatively high altitude instead of a relatively low one?
5. A pilot lands in the only country in the world in which he can see the sun rise over the Pacific Ocean and set over the Atlantic Ocean. Where is he?
6. From reader Dave Shaw: Ailerons control roll by deflecting in opposite directions. Describe two uses for ailerons that are deflected in the same direction.
7. What was the first all-composite airplane certified in the United States?
8. Where is the tallest control tower in North America?

TRUE OR FALSE

9. For the 1949 motion picture Twelve O'Clock High, famed "stunt pilot" Paul Mantz soloed a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and made an intentional gear-up landing.
10. In 1958, a private pilot could rent an airplane from Avis Rent-A-Plane at numerous locations around the United States.
11. The current world distance record in an airship is held by Dr. Hugo Eckner, who flew the L.Z. 127 Graf Zeppelin from Lakehurst, New Jersey, to Friedrichshafen, Germany, in late 1928, a distance of 3,447.3 nm.

MULTIPLE CHOICE

12. Which one of the following does not belong?
    1. A successful oil man, he took his first airplane ride at the age of 45 and was not impressed.
    2. Despite his success as an aircraft manufacturer, he never learned to fly.
    3. He built an airplane based on a glider design and powered by a 20-horse power engine called the Brownback Kitten.
    4. His involvement in aviation began when his business partner invested $400 of theirs in a company that produced an airplane called the Chummy.
13. From reader Jeff Pardo: The first midair collision between two aircraft occurred
    1. in 1910. The pilots were brothers.
    2. in 1914 during the first air battle over the Eastern Front.
    3. in 1919 between a Navy dirigible and a Goodyear dirigible.
    4. in 1929 when a Maddux Air Lines' Ford Tri-motor was struck by a Boeing pursuit plane.
14. Every AOPA member has a membership number. AOPA member #1 was
    1. Joseph B. "Doc" Hartranft Jr.
    2. Max Karant.
    3. Laurence P. Sharples.
    4. Gill Robb Wilson.
    5. Alfred Wolf.

ANSWERS

1. (d) 1956, (f) 1957, (h) 1958, (c) 1959, (b) 1960, (g) 1962, (e) 1968, and (a) 1975.
2. General Electric's GE90-115B for Boeing's longest-range Boeing 777 is or soon will be FAA certified with 115,000 pounds of thrust. In comparison, each turbofan engine of the Boeing 707-120B had only 18,000 pounds of thrust.
3. Pilots of F/A 18 Hornets keep their hands off the control stick during a catapult launch from an aircraft carrier. The autopilot rotates to and maintains a 12-degree angle of attack until the pilot takes over after launch. These aircraft also can make automatic landings on carriers.
4. Maximum range occurs at a specific and relatively slow calibrated airspeed (close to the speed for best glide). The higher one flies at such an airspeed, the greater the true airspeed and the shorter the flight.
5. He is in Panama, a narrow isthmus of a country that S-turns in a way that makes this phenomenon possible.
6. (a) When used as flaps (flaperons) and (b) when used as "active ailerons" (an autopilot function) to relieve gust loads by deflecting upward and reducing wing-bending moments. Active ailerons are used, for example, on the Lockheed L1011-500 TriStar and many Lockheed C-5A Galaxies.
7. The Windecker Eagle was certified in 1969 and was developed by dentists Dr. Leo Windecker and his wife, Dr. Fairfax Windecker, in conjunction with the Dow Chemical Company.
8. The tallest control tower in North America is 345 feet tall and is at Orlando International Airport.
9. True. Mantz sat in the left seat and manipulated necessary controls on the copilot's side of the cockpit using steel welding rods attached to those controls because Twentieth Century Fox "didn't want to risk hurting anyone else."
10. False. But you could rent one from Hertz Rent-A-Plane, a program that failed soon after it began. Airplanes rented for as little as $1.50 per hour plus 13 cents per mile.
11. True. Although the Hindenburg subsequently flew the same route, it never flew any farther and, therefore, did not break the Graf's record.
12. (b) William T. Piper Sr. was a certificated pilot and obtained his multiengine rating when he was 73. From the name Brownback Kitten came the Cub.
13. (a) But the brothers were not the Wrights. The brothers Warchalovsky collided over Wiener-Neustadt, Austria, on September 8, 1910, and survived.
14. (d) Wilson flew in the French Escadrille 66, covered World War II for the New York Herald Tribune, was president of the National Aeronautic Association, was a cofounder of AOPA, and was editor and publisher of Flying magazine.

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