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Brainteasers
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Feb. 22, 2007

Brainteasers
Interactive Quiz #117:
Why Make Bad Landings?

Would you rather bounce in a quiz or on real pavement? Let's turn base leg to final to see how well you recognize a bum approach. Caution: Subjective opinions included.

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. Ask any flight instructor for an example of PFmax (maximum pucker factor) and you'll probably hear about some client (not necessarily a student pilot) getting low and slow on final. The hapless pilot tries to increase altitude by increasing pitch. That works for a second, sort of. But as lift momentarily increases, drag -- its sneaky cousin -- also increases. The pilot then attempts to clear the trees with more power and increased pitch. Sadly, as the FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook warns, "there comes a point where the angle of attack is so great and creating so much drag that the maximum available power is insufficient to overcome it." This causes pilot-induced pucker factor (PIPF) while operating in the region of (_____) or what's also called operating on the back side of the power curve. Please fill in the blank.
a. Reversed command
b. Inversed response
c. Adiabatic lapse
d. Coriolis response
e. Informed consent
2. You're in a Cessna 172. It's hot outside. All four seats are occupied, and you've turned final with power at idle and full flaps (30 degrees). You realize you're sinking too quickly. Luckily, you answered the previous question correctly and recognize the impending dangers, so you elect to go around. Your first step should be to:
a. Increase pitch to Vx
b. Increase pitch to Vy
c. Decrease flaps (initially retract to 20 degrees)
d. Increase power
3. Chances are wherever you land in this quiz there will be a crosswind. So, imagine you're on short final, flaps set, engine at or near idle, on glide path, stabilized with speed nailed ... in short, looking and feeling cool. But you're not done yet. The objective is to touch down without ripping the gear legs off while everyone's watching. The wind is from the right, so you're holding some right aileron and some (_____) rudder in order to touch down with the airplane's (_____) axis parallel to the runway. (No Ercoupes allowed.) Please fill in the two blanks.
a. Right, longitudinal
b. Left, lateral
c. Left, longitudinal
d. Neutral, vertical
4. Still working that crosswind from the previous question while landing in a Cessna 172: In order to assure that you continue tracking straight down the runway after touchdown, you should (_____) aileron deflection as your speed decreases.
a. Neutralize
b. Decrease
c. Increase
d. Reverse
5. One from our legal scholars who aren't really lawyers: FAR 91.135 (i) prohibits a not-for-hire pilot from operating a single-engine airplane (certified under FAR 23.45 as amended May 3, 1962) to a runway for the purpose of takeoff or landing when the wind (as reported by ATC, ATIS, ASOS or AWOS-3) exceeds the airplane's demonstrated crosswind component.
a. True
b. False
6. Flaps can be used to: (Select the most complete answer)
a. Produce greater lift and permit lower landing speed.
b. Produce greater drag, permitting a steep descent angle without airspeed increase.
c. Reduce landing roll distance.
d. All of the above.
e. Answers a and c.
7. Adding flaps on approach usually affects pitch. Normally, in order to maintain a stabilized approach while using full flaps the airplane's pitch attitude will be (_____) than the same airplane's pitch in a no-flap approach.
a. Higher
b. Lower
c. About the same
d. Could you repeat the question? I haven't finished my pre-landing checklist yet.
8. You don't need a seaplane rating to practice hydroplaning. You should, however, know that there are three basic types of hydroplaning. Which type occurs "during heavy braking that results in a prolonged locked-wheel skid?"
a. Dynamic hydroplaning
b. Viscous hydroplaning
c. Burnt-rubber hydroplaning
d. Reverted-rubber hydroplaning
9. Judge the veracity of this entire statement: Because the center of gravity (CG) is located forward of the main landing gear (normally) in tricycle-geared airplanes, they are immune to ground looping, the bane of tailwheel pilots.
a. True
b. False
10. Time now for Fun With A Porpoise. No, not Flipper's homage to Highlights magazine. Instead, we drop you into a Cherokee 180's PIC seat. You're cleared to land and, for test porpoises only, you are about to commit one of the most common (and preventable) landings errors: It's the bounce compounded by improper recovery. That oscillating up/down bouncing -- like a dolphin -- is called a porpoise. Air traffic controllers witness this on a depressingly regular basis and know that the average single-engine, tricycle-geared airplane will crash, break its nose wheel and slide like a belly-flopped sea mammal down the runway if a go-around is not initiated before the nose wheel impacts the runway for the (_____) time.
a. First
b. Second
c. Third
d. Fourth