1. From reader Rick Cohen: True or false? During World War II, Japan was unsuccessful in its attempt to drop bombs on and kill Americans in any of the 48 states.
2. True or false? It is possible to safely fly an airplane equipped with a one-blade propeller.
3. From reader George Shanks: What was the largest airplane to be equipped with floats (a floatplane, not a flying boat)?
4. The process of ice on a wing changing state and becoming water vapor (a gas) without first becoming water is called _______. The reverse process (when water vapor becomes snow or ice without first becoming water) is called _______.
5. From reader John Schmidt: How was an airplane used to destroy a dying satellite that was orbiting 345 miles above the Earth?
6. The localizer of an instrument landing system (ILS) has a width of
A. 3 degrees.
B. 4 degrees.
C. 5 degrees.
D. None of the above.
7. Increasing an airplane’s airspeed while in level flight also increases the speed of the air flowing past the static port(s). Why doesn’t this additional airspeed cause a reduction in static pressure in the vicinity of the static ports and produce erroneous altitude, airspeed, and vertical-speed indications?
8. Only a few civilian aircraft were certified during World War II. After the war, however, there was a flurry of certification activity. Which of the following aircraft was first to receive its approved type certificate after the war?
A. Aeronca 7AC Champion
B. Beechcraft 35 Bonanza
C. Ercoupe 415
D. Piper J–3 Cub
Test Pilot Answers
1. False. During 1944 and 1945, Japan launched 9,000 hydrogen-filled paper balloons carrying incendiary explosives. These were intended to cross the Pacific in three to four days (in the jet stream). One such “balloon bomb” fell near Bly, Oregon, on May 5, 1945, and killed five children and a minister’s wife.
2. True. There have been a number of Experimental one-blade propellers. A counterweight replaces the opposite blade and provides balance. Because all thrust is generated on one side of the propeller disc at any given time, the crankshaft and its bearings are seriously strained.
3. The largest production airplane was the Douglas DC–3. The largest Experimental airplane on floats, however, was the Italian CANT Z.511, a four-engine, long-range, 75,400-pound seaplane that first flew in October 1940.
4. Sublimation, deposition. (At one time, the term sublimation represented phase changes in both directions, i.e., solid to vapor, and vapor to solid.) The other four phase changes in water are evaporation (liquid to gas), condensation (gas to liquid), freezing (liquid to solid), and melting (solid to liquid).
5. On September 13, 1985, Maj. Doug Pearson flew a McDonnell Douglas F–15 Eagle to a specified point over the Pacific Ocean, pulled up into a 65-degree climb, and at 38,100 feet released a missile. Moments later, the Solwind P78-1 satellite became a field of debris.
6. D. Localizer width depends on runway length and is tailored to be 700 feet wide at the runway threshold. The longer the runway, therefore, the narrower (and more sensitive) is the localizer.
7. Even though the airflow (or streamlines) passing by the static ports do increase in velocity, the velocity of the streamlines ahead of the static ports is the same as the velocity of the streamlines passing by the ports, i.e., velocity does not change along the length of the streamlines in the vicinity of the static ports. According to Bernoulli’s principle, a change in pressure only results from a local change in velocity (as occurs to streamlines flowing over a cambered wing).
8. A. The “Champ” (or “Airknocker”) was certified on October 18, 1945, and by August 1946, 43 of them were rolling out of the Middletown, Ohio, factory every day. The Cub and the Ercoupe were certified before the war, and the Bonanza was certified on March 25, 1947.
