Test Pilot

1. True or false? The world’s largest production glider could carry 200 troops or 44,000 pounds of cargo.
2. Why is it customary for the pilot in command of a helicopter to sit on the right instead of on the left?
3. Who said, “Home is where the heart is, and to those who fly, home is in their island, their island in the sky”?
   A. Amelia Earhart
   B. Eddie Rickenbacker
   C. Jimmy Stewart
   D. John Wayne
4. Vintage airplanes typically did not have tailwheels or brakes, but they did have non-steerable tailskids. How was it possible to make taxiing turns in such aircraft?
5. From reader George Shanks: Where is the world’s tallest control tower?
6. A non-rigid airship maintains its shape because of the gas pressure within its envelope. Like a child’s balloon, it has no internal structure. How did such an aircraft come to be called a blimp?
7. “Although much better known as a pilot, I distinguished myself in high school as a gymnast and as a 15-year-old, amateur flyweight boxing champion. I also boxed while in college and later turned professional even though I never weighed more than 145 pounds. Who am I?”
8. The first pressurized, piston-powered general aviation twin was the
   A. Aero Commander 720 Alti-Cruiser.
   B. Beech Queen Air 88.
   C. Cessna 421 Golden Eagle.
   D. Piper PA–31P Navajo.

Test Pilot Answers

1. True. The Messerschmitt Me 321B Gigant (Giant) was a huge German glider produced during World War II and intended for large-scale invasions. It had a gross weight of 75,839 pounds and was towed aloft by three twin-engine airplanes.
2. Early helicopters had a single collective/throttle control between the two pilots. Each pilot was provided with a control stick (cyclic). Because it was ergonomically desirable to use the stick with the right hand, this required the pilot in command to sit on the right (and use the collective with his left hand).
3. The correct answer is D. This was one of John Wayne’s lines in the classic 1953 aviation film, Island in the Sky, which was written by Ernest Gann and based on his 1944 novel of the same title.
4. The pilot pushed the stick fully forward, applied full rudder in the direction of desired turn, and added a blast of power. The nose-down elevator reduced weight on the tailskid and allowed propwash across the rudder to yaw the airplane.
5. The world’s tallest control tower rises 446 feet above the King Abdulaziz International Airport serving Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The tallest control tower in the United States is at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
6. During World War I, Lt. A.D. Cunningham of the Royal Navy Air Service commanded an air station in England. While walking along the side of His Majesty’s (non-rigid) Airship SS–12, he playfully flipped his thumb at the taut fabric “gasbag” and verbalized the odd sound this made, “blimp.” It is dismissed as myth that blimp was a contraction of “Type B, Limp.”
7. Five-foot, four-inch-tall Jimmy Doolittle boxed professionally under the name of Jimmy Pierce so that his disapproving mother would not know he was boxing against her wishes.
8. The correct answer is A. The Alti-Cruiser was introduced in 1958. The others were introduced in 1966, 1967, and 1970, respectively.