September 8, 2005

Interactive Quiz #98:
Foggy Nights and Pretty Approach Lights

Nighttime on an airport is a wondrous time splashed with sparkling lights, beckoning stars, and more than a few regulations and silly ways to embarrass yourself, unless you know the answers to the following questions.

INSTRUCTIONS: Answer the questions as best you can, then click on the "Score my quiz answers" button to see your score and read the explanations. If you don't like your score the first time around, you can change some of your answers and resubmit. To get the most out of this quiz, we suggest you keep trying until you get a perfect score.

NOTE: When more than one answer is true, only the most complete, correct answer will be scored as correct. The answers are assumed to apply within the United States unless otherwise noted.

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1. Ever notice how nice everyone at the airport becomes as the sun sets? The refueler doesn't drag the hose across your wing, the tower controller puts a little smile into that "Have a nice flight," and even the windsock settles down. That time period of fuzzy goodness is labeled "(_____)," or, "intervals of incomplete darkness following sunset and preceding sunrise ... when the sun is not more than (_____) degrees below the horizon."
a. Official sunrise/sunset, four degrees
b. NOAA sunrise/sunset, three degrees
c. Alaskan Twilight, five degrees
d. Civil Twilight, six degrees
e. Miller Time, 34 degrees

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2. When night, as Longfellow said, "begins to lower," the tower controllers at airports inside Class B, C, or D airspace flip on the airport beacon (some beacons are controlled automatically), runway and taxiway lights, plus the approach light system (ALS -- see photo below). The ALS are operated if:

Approach Lighting System

a. An instrument (IFR) arrival requests them.
b. They serve the landing runway.
c. They serve a runway to which an approach is being made but aircraft will land on another runway.
d. Either b or c.

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3. It's daytime, and you're on an IFR clearance inbound on the localizer approach to Runway 12 at Greengill Muni, which is located inside Class C airspace. The wind is calm. You can expect the approach lights to be operated by the tower controller if the following conditions are met (according to the ATC manual, FAA Order 7110.65):
a. The ceiling is less than 1,000 feet.
b. The prevailing visibility is 5 miles or less.
c. You request the approach lights.
d. Whenever the tower controller deems them necessary, if not contrary to pilot's request.
e. Any of the above.

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4. While shooting an ILS approach to Runway 20 at Walla Walla, Wash., Airport after sunset (see graphic below), you intercept the localizer, pass through a few wisps of clouds and -- before you reach the outer marker -- Chinook Approach Control tells you to "Contact Walla Walla Tower, 118.5." You switch, and because you have impeccable radio technique (a byproduct of reading AVweb and IFR magazine), you listen before talking. You hear the pilot of the aircraft ahead report the runway in sight and then -- much to your horror -- this otherwise friendly-sounding person asks tower to "Kill the rabbit." (Actually, it sounds like "Walla Walla Towah, kill da waskilly wabbit.") What, if anything, will the Walla Walla air traffic controller eliminate with extreme prejudice?

ILS Rwy 20 into Walla Walla (ALW) (Click graphic for larger version.)

a. The approach lights
b. The runway edge lights
c. The PAPI
d. High-intensity flasher system
e. A furry animal that tastes good when served with garlic, onions, and an amusing pinot

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5. Let's linger over Walla Walla -- not merely because it's fun to say -- but because as you approach your decision altitude (DA) of 1391 feet, you look up from the gauges and see nothing but gray. Time to go missed approach, which requires (according to the chart above) a climb to 2000 feet and then a climbing right turn to 3700 feet. Walla Walla has an operating control tower, but as you go missed the tower says, "The Tower and Chinook Approach are closing for the night, contact Seattle Center on 133.15 for your next approach." As you climb and turn toward TRINA LOM for the published hold, you re-read the missed approach instructions, which say to climb to 3700 feet, but in parenthesis it says, "CAT. E 4700." This means that when the tower is closed, Category D airspace reverts to Category E surface-area airspace, and all missed approaches shall climb to 4700 feet for better radar and radio coverage with Center.
a. True
b. False

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6. Way back in Brainteaser Quiz # 78, you correctly explained what lights were required on your aircraft. Now, please explain when you must ("shall") operate your aircraft's position lights if you're flying a 1977 Cessna 172 (not for hire) above Walla Walla, Wash., inside Class D airspace. The weather is clear, visibility greater than 6 miles and forecast to remain so.
a. Sunset to sunrise
b. Thirty minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise
c. Sixty minutes after sunset to 60 minutes before sunrise
d. Sunrise to sunset

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7. You're in a Cessna 180, VFR, not for hire, at night (two hours after sunset) departing Walla Walla on the way to Ketchasketchkan, Idaho, for the annual Hemingwayesque Running of the Trout Festival. Your preflight inspection showed no deficiencies, no loose gas caps or impending ADs, all paperwork was in order, and you, the pilot-in-command, deemed the aircraft airworthy. You take off and exit the pattern. Twenty miles into your 87-mile trip you realize that an anticollision light is out. The position lights are fine, however. Walla Walla airport is open; your destination airport is open. In between are several airports that have lighted runways but no repair shops. You shall:
a. Land immediately
b. Land at the nearest lighted airport
c. Return to Walla Walla
d. Continue to a stop where repairs can be made

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8. Two days later, as dawn breaks, you're headed home, VFR, with a baggage compartment full of dead fish, and, as you listen to the weather reports ahead, you decide to air-file IFR and pick up a clearance for an instrument approach. You're in clear air but the visibility at your destination and surrounding airports is poor with visibilities below two miles. Some airports report fog (FG) and others report mist (BR). Your alternate is behind you in severe clear VFR. You have plenty of fuel, but the fish are getting a bit ripe. None of that matters because all we want to know is when does FG become BR?
a. Fog is observed or forecast only when the visibility is less than five-eighths of a mile, otherwise mist is observed or forecast.
b. Fog is observed or forecast only when the visibility is less than one mile, otherwise mist is observed or forecast.
c. Fog is observed or forecast only when the visibility is less than one-eighth of a mile, otherwise mist is observed or forecast.
d. Fog is observed or forecast only when the visibility is less than one-half mile, otherwise mist is observed or forecast.

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9. Remember last month's Quiz (#97)? It was loaded with weird optical, aeromedical, and brainteasing illusions encountered in instrument or night flight. Well, those weren't the only weird illusions in flight. Penetration of fog can create the illusion of (_____). Keep a level head and fill in that blank.
a. Pitching down
b. Pitching up
c. Tumbling
d. Leaning

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10. Fog, according to the FAA's Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge H-8083-25 (Chapter 10), is a cloud within 50 feet of the ground. It's subdivided into types based on how it formed. Which type of fog forms when a layer of warm, moist air moves over a cold surface?

"The fog comes on little cat feet." (Carl Sandburg)

a. Upslope
b. Avuncular
c. Radiation
d. Advection

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