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Wednesday 19th June 2013
Brainteasers
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Jul. 13, 2006

Brainteasers
Interactive Quiz #109:
Instrument Failure Is An Option

Flying on the gauges is easy. Instructors make it seem hard by covering up instruments with sticky notes. They're not being jerks but, instead, are simulating instrument failures. Show that you're prepared for failure by acing this quiz.

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.

1. Let's see if your airplane is prepared for failure. You're a private pilot (SEL) with an instrument rating. You're wealthy, erudite (which means you know what erudite means) and, as Sarah Miles says in Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines, "Very good-looking." In short, you're a typical IFR magazine subscriber who takes recurrent training seriously. Your one quirk is that you own a 1951 Beechcraft 35C Bonanza. Its panel is fairly basic with two KX-155 nav/coms with glideslope. Marker beacons, ADF, timer, transponder and a portable GPS duct-taped to the yoke complete your IFR-certified ensemble. It's that yoke, however, that draws attention: There's only one. Each pilot has rudder pedals but this yoke is a single, throw-over device, meaning either the left- or right-seat occupant can access it, not both. It throws over from side to side, which in a Laurel and Hardy way is quite amusing in flight. Your CFII is not so amused. You plan to fly in VMC (visual meteorological conditions) under the hood. The CFII checks FAR 91.109 and discovers that the throw-over yoke (pick best answer):
a. Cannot be used for simulated instrument training; you must install a dual yoke.
b. Is approved for simulated instrument training provided the CFII determines that the flight can be conducted safely.
c. Is approved for simulated instrument training provided a "field approval" is received from FSDO.
d. Cannot be used for simulated training unless an approved autopilot is installed (not necessarily used).
2. Regardless how you answered Question #1, you install a dual yoke in your Bonanza, and a month after completing a successful IPC (Instrument Proficiency Check) you ask a pilot to ride along as safety pilot on a clear day for a VFR simulated-instrument flight while you fly under the hood. That right-seat safety pilot must, among other things, hold at least what level pilot certificate?
a. Sport
b. Recreational
c. Instructor (CFI, although not CFII)
d. Anything with an Instrument Rating
e. Private
3. Think back, now, to your first day of instrument boot camp in Inferno Springs, Ariz., where you can earn an instrument rating in 10 days because there's rarely a cloud in the sky. You trained in a Piper Archer with a basic six-pack panel consisting of attitude indicator, airspeed indicator, altimeter, vertical-speed indicator, heading indicator, and electric turn coordinator. Which of the following instruments in this panel are normally powered by a vacuum pump?
a. Altimeter
b. Vertical Speed Indicator
c. Heading Indicator
d. Airspeed Indicator
4. The airplane's attitude indicator displays pitch, bank, and rate of turn.
a. True
b. False
5. A turn coordinator indicates rate and direction of turn plus bank angle.
a. True
b. False
6. While flying under the hood, shortly after liftoff you notice that the airspeed indicator registers zero, or as close to zero as it can read. All other instruments are normal. You're climbing. The altimeter and the VSI both indicate a climb. The engine sounds good and the tachometer reads normal for climb. You're holding heading and the heading indicator closely approximates the wet compass. What is/are blocked?
a. Pitot tube inlet and static source
b. Pitot tube, pitot drain hole, and static source
c. Pitot tube inlet
d. Static source
e. Static source and pitot drain hole
7. Your Piper Archer has two static sources, one on either side of the fuselage. Should one become blocked, you have the other. Unfortunately, a small, ill-mannered child stuffed Playdough into both static sources and a quick-thinking babysitter managed to wipe both ports clear before Homeland Security arrested the pair. You could not notice the itsy bits of dough still packed into the static sources, blocking both. Later, flying through Arizona's one cloud, you suspect you have a blocked static source (both sides) when you notice which instruments misbehaving (other instrument sources are functioning):
a. Heading indicator, altimeter, vertical speed indicator
b. Vertical speed indicator, altimeter, airspeed indicator
c. Attitude indicator
d. Tachometer, airspeed indicator, artificial horizon
8. Instruments can and do fail in flight. That's why we practice partial panel. Radios fail, too, and that's why we usually have a pair of them plus a portable radio in the flight bag. Let's imagine the nearly unimaginable: You're on an IFR clearance in the clouds at 8,000 feet MSL over west Texas when your passenger remarks, "Sure is quiet on the frequency." Keying your microphone you notice just how dead your radios are. Your backup portable radio has a dead battery. Semaphore is not an option, and you can't see the ground to land VFR. All other instruments and systems function properly. You have plenty of fuel. Prior to the radio failure, Center had said, "Radar service terminated, report ..." and the name of a VOR along your filed airway route. The controller also said, "Expect one two thousand (12,000 feet MSL) in five minutes." Headed west, you slowly approach higher terrain and need to climb. ATC, knowing that you have lost radios, will expect you to travel along the route last assigned and to maintain the highest of which altitudes for the route segment being flown:
a. The altitude assigned in the last ATC clearance received
b. The minimum altitude (MEA, MCA, etc.)
c. The altitude ATC has advised may be expected in a further clearance
d. All of the above
9. A standard rate turn in your Piper Archer is (_____) per second, and a 180-degree turn should take (_____).
a. 10 degrees, 2 minutes
b. 3 degrees, 2 minutes
c. 10 degrees, 1 minute
d. 3 degrees, 1 minute
10. VFR private pilot candidates training under FAR Part 61 are required to have a minimum three hours of instrument flight instruction. That's just enough to get into and, it's hoped, out of trouble. Chief among the instrument survival skills is recovery from unusual attitudes in the clouds. If you notice an unusually nose-high and turning attitude -- airspeed falling, altitude increasing, heading indicator turning -- the first step to recovery is to apply forward-elevator pressure to prevent a stall. If, instead, you're in a nose-low unusual banking attitude -- airspeed climbing, altitude decreasing, engine screaming, and heading indicator turning -- the recovery begins with:
a. Decrease power and apply back-elevator pressure.
b. Increase power and apply back-elevator pressure.
c. Decrease power and apply forward elevator pressure.
d. Decrease power and correct the bank attitude with coordinated aileron and rudder pressure.
11. Bonus Opinionated Safety Question: Is loss of a vacuum pump in IMC worthy of priority -- dare we say, emergency -- treatment by ATC?
a. Yes
b. Yes.
c. Yes.
d. Yes.
e. All of the above

If you enjoyed taking this interactive quiz and would like to see more like it, go to the AVweb Brainteaser page. And if you thought it was unfair, confusing, or a waste of time, we'd like you to tell us that, too. And if you have an idea for a subject that you think would make a good future Brainteaser quiz, be sure to let us know.

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