Test pilot

1. True or false? In the 1954 film, The High and the Mighty, a Douglas DC–4 airliner narrowly averts having to ditch while en route from Honolulu to San Francisco. The actual aircraft used in the film, N4726V, ditched during a flight along the same route 10 years later.
2. Who was the first woman airline pilot in the United States?
3. From reader Richard Wilsher: True or false? For a pilot to legally fly an airplane carrying passengers through the zone of totality during a solar eclipse, he must have made three takeoffs and landings at night during the previous 90 days.
4. The total cost to design and build the original Spirit of St. Louis was
1. $5,580.
2. $10,580.
3. $20,580.
4. $40,580.
5. From reader George Shanks: True or false? The deadliest airship accident in history was that involving the Hindenburg when it burst into flame during an attempted mooring at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937.
6. How did it come to be that safety belt buckles in aircraft connect at the front and center of a pilot’s torso instead of on the side (as is the case with automobiles)?
7. From reader John Schmidt: The first animal(s) sent into space was (were)
1. a dog.
2. fruit flies.
3. mice.
4. a monkey.
8. “I was considered the greatest aviator of all time, but today I am the ‘forgotten father of aerobatics.’ Orville Wright called impossible what I could do with an airplane even though 17 million Americans witnessed it during my 126-city tour in 1914. Pilots died trying to duplicate my feats. Thomas Edison said that my flying was a contribution to science. Who am I?”

Answers

1. True. Once the personal aircraft of Argentinian dictator Juan Domingo Perón, the DC–4 went into the Pacific 700 miles west of San Francisco on March 28, 1964, under circumstances similar to those in the movie. The Coast Guard searched for the aircraft for five days, but no trace of it or any of those on board were ever found.
2. Helen Richey was hired as a co-pilot by Central Airlines in 1934. Her first flight was aboard a Ford Trimotor from Washington, D.C., to Detroit.
3. False. Per FAR 61.57, night currency is required only during the period beginning one (1) hour after sunset and ending one (1) hour before sunrise. Flying in a zone of totality does not occur during this period.
4. The correct answer is B. Consider that this was in 1927.
5. False. Only 35 perished during the Hindenburg disaster. Seventy-three lives were lost, however, when the USS Akron, a U.S. Navy airship, crashed off the coast of New Jersey in a severe storm in 1933.
6. In case of an accident resulting in an injured or broken arm, the injured person can most easily reach a centrally located buckle irrespective of which arm is injured.
7. The correct answer is B. The first living creatures intentionally sent into space were fruit flies launched from the White Sands Missile Range aboard a V-2 rocket on February 20, 1947. The rocket reached an altitude of 67 miles before being parachuted back to Earth. The flies paved the way for mammals.
8. “I am Lincoln Beachey, and I was first in America to perform a loop and first anywhere to perform barrel rolls, tail slides, and a host of other aerobatic maneuvers. I was first to fly upside down and first to achieve terminal velocity during vertical flight. I also am credited with developing stall-recovery techniques.”