Prop Tip Trivia Questions & Answers!

1. What is a Balbo?

Answer: Any large formation of airplanes. It is named after Itaio Balbo, who led an armada of 24 Savoia-Marchetti SM.55X flying boats from Italy to & from the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.

2.    The U.S. Navy has had 76 aircraft         carriers, the newest being the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76). What was the name of the Navy’s First aircraft carrier?

Answer: The USS Langley (CV 1) was converted from a collier (a coal tanker) by        building a platform over here entire deck. She was commissioned as a carrier on March 20^th, 1922 and sunk during enemy action near Tjiatjap, Java, on February 27, 1942.  

3.Who was the first woman in the world to be employed as an airline pilot?

Answer:

: Helen Richey was hired by Central Airlines after competing against   eight men. She made her first flight as Co-Pilot on a Stinson Tri motor on January 1, 1935.  She resigned later that year because the Bureau of air Commerce would not allow her to fly passengers in “heavy weather”.  

4. During Cruise Flight a pilot is approaching a flock of birds at his altitude. What would be the safest procedure to use to protect the aircraft and the birds?

a.      Climb.

b.      Descend.

c.      Maintain Altitude.

d.      Turn right (Northern Hemisphere only)

Answer: a. Climb: Birds in flocks tend to distribute themselves downward with lead birds at the highest altitude.

5.    What does a modern U.S. naval destroyer have in common with a McDonnell Douglas DC-10?

Answer: Both use General Electric CF6 turbine engines, four in a destroyer and three in a DC-10.  

6.    If you were flying along in a complex piston-powered airplane and lost oil pressure, what two systems would fail before the engine would fail?  

Answer: The propeller governor would lose its ability to maintain a constant propeller speed (rpm) and the turbocharger would fail if it has an automatic waste gate that is controlled by engine oil pressure working against a spring.  

7.    Where did Charles A. Lindbergh make his first solo flight?

Answer: Souther Field in Americus, Georgia. He flew in a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny in early May 1923, four years before his flight to Paris.

  8.  Can you guess the highest altitude ever reached by a propeller-driven airplane? Answer: AeroVironment’s Helios, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), Had a wingspan of 247 feet and 14 solar-powered DC motors. It reached 96,863 feet on August 13, 2001 and broke the altitude records for propeller and jet-powered airplanes.

9.    True Or False? The early North American P-51 Mustangs had Allison       V- 1710 engines.  Merlin engines designed by Rolls Royce powered the later models.  The American and British engines turned in opposite directions, so that Mustang pilots counter P-factor by applying right or left rudder, depending on the engine. Answer: False:  The propellers of all Mustangs rotate the same way (clockwise as seen from the cockpit).

10.   True or False?   The only structural difference between a Cessna 150 and a Cessna      150Aerobatic aircraft is the Aerobatic aircraft has beefed up wing ribs.  Answer: False: There were many changes other then the beefed up wing ribs. It also had beefed up spar caps, engine mounts, rear fuselage & stabilizer. It had additional rivets in the wings and sturdier wing struts.

11. What well-known civilian landplane can land with a gear retracted during routine operations? Answer: A McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30 has a center main that will be extended during extra heavy landings but extending it during light landings is optional.  

12.  What was the first production airplane manufactured by Beech Aircraft Corp? Answer: The Beech Stagger wing Model 17, a single engine biplane with a retractable landing gear.

 13. Name a similarity between an air traffic controller and a pilot? Answer: If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies, if the air traffic controller screws up, the pilot dies.