Illustration by Jon Ueland.
- Several models of Beech Aircraft were given names relating to royalty or nobility (such as the Beech Duke and the Beech Duchess). What is or was the Beech Marquis?
- The Gosport was the first intercom system. It consisted of a flexible speaking tube that enabled the instructor in the front cockpit of an open-cockpit airplane to speak to his student in the rear cockpit by yelling mightily into the funnel at the talking end of the tube. Why was it called a Gosport?
- From reader John Schmidt: The world’s largest private collection of fighter airplanes is maintained in
- England.
- France.
- Mongolia.
- The United States.
- True or false? Charles A. Lindbergh was known as “Lucky Lindy.” One reason for this is that during his solo flight across the Atlantic to Paris, the net wind drift was zero.
- From reader Jerry Griggs: True or false? The first three-engine airplane produced by Boeing was the Boeing 727.
- Why do migrating geese fly in a V formation?
- From reader George Hulett: A fighter ace is a pilot who has made five kills (shot down five enemy aircraft). Who qualifies as an ace of aces? For once you have tasted flight,
- This well-known and beautiful piece of prose was written by
- Richard Bach.
- Leonardo da Vinci.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
- Ernest K. Gann.
- Beech Aircraft supplied Model 95 Travel Air airframes to SFERMA in France. Each was equipped with Turbomeca Astazou turboprop engines and was called a Beech Marquis. This primitive intercom got its name from the British Military Flying School at Gosport, England, which is where the device was first used. (In 1944 Gosport was a major embarkation point for the Normandy invasion.)
- The correct answer is B. French winemaker Michel Pont’s collection numbers 110. They are parked
for the public to see at his chateau in Savigny-
Les-Beaune in the Burgundy region of France. - True. Meteorologists in New York said that this was the first time that such “unusual wind conditions [had] been recorded by weather experts.”
- False. During the late 1920s Boeing built the Model 80/80A, a trimotor biplane that carried 18 passengers and a crew of three.
- To save energy. Except for the leader, each goose takes advantage of the lift from a current produced by the wake of the preceding bird. Geese often take turns as the leader of the formation.
- An ace of aces is a title accorded to the top ace within a branch of service and during a given military campaign. For example, Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker was America’s ace of aces during World War I.
- The correct answer is B. This Italian master (1452-1519) of the Renaissance Era was writing about the flight of birds.
You will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward;
For there you have been,
And there you long to return.
Test Pilot Answers
Barry Schiff
Barry Schiff has been an aviation media consultant and technical advisor for motion pictures for more than 40 years. He is chairman of the AOPA Foundation Legacy Society.
