November 3, 2005

Interactive Quiz #100:
New Stuff, Old Stuff

In this -- the 100th Brainteaser quiz -- we cast a net across the vast sea of aviation knowledge to snag what's old, new, and even a little blue while challenging your crosswind technique.

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. If there's anything the FAA (Funny Acronym Agency) loves, it's new terminology, especially if no one understands what the terms mean. Every Brainteaser veteran knows the familiar terms such as ATC, FSS, and FSDO. ATC is Air Traffic Control, those lovable voices guiding you through the murk. FSS is the Flight Service Station, now owned by Wal-Mart with its blue-vested attendants who clean your windshield and air the wings while providing up-to-date weather and NOTAMs. FSDO, more mercurial than the others, is the Flight Standards District Office. Hard to say why it exists, but picture former KGB agents in better suits. Here's a new (newish) term in the National Airspace System (NAS): ATS routes. Funny, it doesn't look newish. So what are ATS Routes?
a. Air Traffic Sequenced routes (flow restrictions)
b. ADIZ Traffic Surveillance routes (TFR term)
c. Aeronautical Traffic Service routes (ICAO term)
d. Air Traffic Service routes (airways and such)

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2. Low-altitude federal airways (1,200 feet AGL up to but not including 18,000 feet MSL) between VORs or intersections are called "Victor Airways," such as V35, pronounced "Victor Thirty-Five." High altitude routes (18,000 feet MSL to FL450) between VORs or intersections are called Jet Routes, such as J532, pronounced "J Five Thirty Two." Refer to the NACO IFR low-altitude en route chart below and find the slightly offshore blue airway, Q102, west of Fort Myers VORTAC. While "Q102" sounds like the moniker for a prepubescent rock station, "Q" is really the newish designator assigned to published TACAN routes used solely by the United States military.

Q-Route (click for larger version)

a. True
b. False

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3. Not new, not old, but important nonetheless: What's "NACO" mentioned in the previous question?
a. National Air Controllers Organization
b. National Aeronautical Charting Office
c. National Aviation Chart Office
d. National Advisory Committee Organization
e. Navion Airplanes Completely Overrated

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4. Every IFR pilot (and IFR magazine reader) should be familiar with the term STAR, which stands for Standard Terminal Arrival Route -- published routes designed (as per AIM 9-1-4) to "expedite ATC arrival procedures and to facilitate transition between en route and instrument approach operations." Every pilot -- IFR or VFR -- should know about ATC's STARS. It's not the TRACON's basketball team but, instead, is an approach control tool that means:
a. Special Terminal Approach Radar System
b. Standard Terminal Automation Radar System
c. Standard Terminal Automation Replacement System
d. Sequence Tool Air Route System
e. Standard Tired Automatic Request Squelcher (FAA's "Just Say No" tool)

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5. While attending the Aviation North Expo in Fairbanks, Alaska, you heard antique airplane expert Brent Taylor give advice on maintaining the oldest flying machines in the skies. Sitting beside you was a grizzled Cessna 206 charter pilot who just wouldn't shut up; she kept bragging about ADS-B and how it has helped lower accident rates in this airplane-eating part of the planet. "OK," you said, "Just what is ADS-B?" And, in a roundabout way, that's our question to you: What does ADS-B mean?
a. Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast
b. Automated Departure Surveillance - Bravo
c. Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Bravo
d. Alaska Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast

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6. No matter how sophisticated the National Airspace System (NAS) gets, controllers will continue to be irritated by little things such as pilots who mumble into crappy radios or transponders with bum Mode C readouts. When the little things buzz about their headsets, controllers may feel the urge to scream, "Just stop it!" But, that would be un-ATC-like, so the Controller's Handbook (FAA 7110.65) offers some specific "knock-that-off" phraseology. For instance, "Stop Squawk" means switch off that junk transponder. What do "Stop Stream, Stop Buzzer, Stop Burst" mean?
a. Stop random drug testing, stop ringing the tower doorbell, stop cutting into transmissions
b. Stop departures, stop read backs, stop multiple transmissions
c. Stop flow control, stop low approaches, stop formation break-ups
d. Stop Electronic Counter Measures (ECM)
e. Stop ... in the name of love ...

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7. You won't hear this term on the ATC frequency, but if you attend the FAA's TERPS (Terminal Instrument Procedures) New Year's party in Oklahoma City (oh, does that crowd get wild once the Red Bull starts flowing), you may hear a TERPSter (someone who designs instrument approaches) utter the term "Pitch Point." It's not a party pickup line but instead is:
a. The point at which military jet fighters "pitch up" for a SFO (Simulated Flame Out).
b. The point at which military aircraft "pitch up" for the break in an Overhead Approach (OVH).
c. A fix/waypoint that serves as a transition point from a departure procedure or the low-altitude, ground-based navigation structure into the high-altitude waypoint system.
d. An imaginary point used within ATC as a basis for vectoring aircraft to the final approach course and established along the final approach course one mile from the final approach fix (FAF).

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8. When all's not right with a flight, an ALNOT may be issued. Before you get the word, please define what it means:
a. Alert Notice
b. All Points Notice
c. Aviation Locater Notification
d. Aeronautical Location Notification

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9. Enough terminology. Let's get you in a Cessna 172 cockpit and place you on short final to Runway 36 at Ailerona International Airport somewhere in mid-North America. Runway heading is 359 degrees; the wind is from 030 degrees at 12 knots. You're cleared to land. On final you change from crabbing into the wind to slipping for the touchdown so as not to rip the feet off the tricycle-geared airplane. To do this you will adjust ailerons to lower the right wing, while you add opposite (left) rudder to point the nose straight down the runway. (Ignore elevator and power for the moment.)
a. True
b. False

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10. And now for something completely blue: You've pre-flighted and pre-heated your Cessna 172 while freezing your VFR buns in Brittle Spittle, N.D. As you taxi toward the runway, you see four inches of loose snow on a long runway. It's time to open the throttle, slip those surly, frozen bonds and point your nose toward a state where preheat means the airplane sits in the sunshine. Wind is calm and skies clear, with no other traffic or frozen red herrings. To get your tri-geared airplane out of the snow on the takeoff roll, and not taxi all the way to Georgia, pick the best soft-field technique from the choices below:
a. Control yoke back, add power, lift in ground effect before climbing (at Vx or Vy, your choice).
b. Hold yoke full forward until Vx, pull back, climb at Vx to clear frozen cow at end of runway, then climb at Vy.
c. Neutral elevator, partial power, pull back at Vy, climb
d. Sell airplane, move to Aarpberg Gardens, Fla.

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