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Sunday 20th July 2008
Brainteasers
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Aug. 9, 2007

Brainteasers
Interactive Quiz #123:
IFR Update

Home from Oshkosh, your head is filled with Sean Tucker acrobatics in the fourth dimension. But darkening skies delay your dreams of air-show stardom as you pause to demonstrate your IFR savvy with a 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. While at Oshkosh you slapped down all your credit cards to upgrade your old panel from VOR needles to glass-faced magic. No more ADF. No more wondering if you're really over the FAF. Now, you have billion-dollar satellites beaming information straight into your brain. Or at least it seems that way. And to get the most from your 21st-century panel, you need to explain what the term RNP means:
a. Required Navigation Procedure
b. Required Navigation Performance
c. Radio Navaid Performance
d. Required Navaid Performance
e. Really Neat Plane
2. Now that you've defined RNP, you should know that it comes with numbers on its tail. Which phase of IFR flight calls for "RNP 0.3"?
a. Terminal
b. En Route
c. Approach
d. Departure
e. Both c and d
3. Regardless of how much money you throw at the instrument panel, you'll still need to file IFR, request and receive a clearance, taxi and depart. In order to transition you smoothly and safely into the IFR en route system, ATC may assign a departure procedure (DP). The two types of IFR DPs are:
a. SID and STAR
b. SID and ODP
c. ODP and OTP
d. STP and PDR
e. SID and COCA
4. Radar approach controllers (includes Departure Control) memorize the minimum vectoring altitudes (MVA) inside their airspace. At a glance, the controller knows how low a target can be vectored across the radarscope. Below the MVA, ATC cannot guarantee obstacle clearance. Sadly, airports usually are built below MVA. In fact, they're built at field elevation. Luckily, radar departure controllers may vector departing IFR traffic that's climbing to an assigned altitude at or above the MVA while it is still below the MVA, provided the radar target is within the (select the most complete answer):
a. CVA -- (class) C Vector Area
b. DVA -- (class) D Vector Area
c. BVA -- (class) B Vector Area
d. Any of the above (a, b, and c)
e. None of the above
5. Many pilots never see an MVA chart, probably haven't heard of DVA and, yet, somehow manage to fly quite happily. Blissful ignorance only carries so far, though, because FAR 91.103 says, in part, that each pilot (IFR or VFR) shall "... become familiar with all available information concerning that flight." One source of airport information is the FAA's A/FD. A/FD means (_____) and is published every (_____) days.
a. Airport/FAA Directory, 28
b. Airport/Facility Directory, 56
c. Aerodrome/Facility Directory, 56
d. Aeronautical/Facility Directory, 30
6. Your homebuilt RV-8 may already have this installed, but for most IFR pilots in type-certificated aircraft, HGS is a futuristic instrument display found in high-dollar jets. Still, a pilot's reach must exceed the FAA's grasp of the next generation of instrumentation, so please define HGS.
a. Holograph Guidance System
b. Heads-up Graphic System
c. Heads-up Guidance System
d. Honeywell GNS System
7. Technological wizardry in the cockpit is fine, provided the IFR pilot understands how to clear the low-tech mountains off the end of the runway. If an airport has a published instrument approach procedure (IAP), you can bet that the FAA TERPS staff (a.k.a., TERPSters) surveyed the airport for obstacles in order to decide if it needed a published, instrument DP. If no obstacles interfere with departures, then no DP is published. In that case the departing instrument pilot is expected to cross the departure end of the runway (DER) at a height of at least (_____) feet and climb at (_____) feet per (_____). Please fill in the blanks.
a. 200, 500 feet per minute
b. 48, 200 feet per second
c. 35, 200 feet per minute
d. 35, 200 feet per mile
8. Think back to the movie TORA! TORA! TORA! This gritty docudrama about square-jawed FAA TERPSters defending the skies against surprise changes to instrument procedures never made it into theaters, because 20th Century Fox came out with a more popular movie by the same title about Pearl Harbor. Still, instrument pilots know that TORA, when applied to an airport with instrument operations, means:
a. Take-Off Runway Available
b. Take-Off Run Available
c. Terminal Operations RNP Available
d. Turn On RNAV Arrival
9. The average instrument pilot may not encounter the acronym VCOA. But you're not average, and when flying at mountain airfields you may be expected to comply with a VCOA procedure. What does VCOA mean?
a. Visual Climb Over Airport
b. Variable Climb Obstacle Area
c. Visual Contact Obstacle Area
d. VFR Climb On Airway
10. How much ATC loves you is based upon how good you sound on the initial call-up. Imagine you've been cleared for takeoff (IFR) and, as you enter the clouds, the tower tells you to "Contact Departure." You acknowledge and switch to the preprogrammed departure frequency assigned by Clearance Delivery. You fly the airplane, continue via the DP or last assigned ATC clearance and listen. When the Departure controller's frequency is clear, you key the microphone and say:
a. "Um ..."
b. Callsign, altitude you are climbing through and the altitude to which you are climbing.
c. Callsign, type aircraft, altitude you are climbing through and the altitude to which you are climbing.
d. Callsign, heading, altitude you are climbing through and the altitude to which you are climbing.
11. Bonus Brain Tease: You're departing from Hole-In-The-Valley Airport, located near Hole-In-The-Middle-Of-Nowhere, Utah, home to the famous Hole-in-The-Head Film Festival(tm). You've won big this year and are taking home a baggage compartment loaded with gold-plated statuettes (Holies[tm]). The weather is less than wonderful so you file IFR. Mountains ring this airport and the DP requires a climb in a holding pattern over a navaid to 9500 feet before turning on course. It is ATC's responsibility to ensure that your aircraft is capable of meeting any obstacle clearance requirements (climb rates and such) prior to issuing the IFR clearance.
a. True
b. False