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Brainteasers
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Sep. 6, 2007

Brainteasers
Interactive Quiz #124:
Back To School Quiz

Shoes shined and hair slicked down, let's see what you remember after the long summer's break. Those who don't score well on this quiz will be forced to spend more time at the airport.

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. Consider your crosswind landing technique: Aileron into the wind, hold opposite rudder to keep the nose aligned with the runway, and when the wheels touch, let go of everything. Right? No, that last part isn't right. Crosswind correction needs to be held throughout the landing rollout (ask any tailwheel pilot). Consider, now, the crosswind departure (IFR or VFR ) from a tower-controlled runway (Class B, C or D airspace). Tower says, "Fly runway heading, Runway 4 Left, cleared for takeoff." You hold aileron into the wind and opposite rudder to keep the tires quiet. As you lift, ATC expects you to apply drift correction, "... so as to track straight out -- tracking the runway heading."
a. True
b. False
2. Over the United States, except Hawaii, IFR assigned cruising altitudes (18,000 feet or higher) are referred to as (_____) and are inside Class (_____) airspace. Please fill in the blanks (unless you're lying on the beach in Hawaii and just don't feel like doing it, in which case we totally understand).
a. Flight Standards, B
b. Flight Levels, A
c. IFR Levels, B
d. Absolute Altitudes, C
e. Pressure Altitudes, A
3. The purpose of most instrument approaches is get the aircraft through the clag and into a position close enough to the ground -- without actually hitting it -- for the pilot to take over visually and land. Forget Cat 3 autoland operations. Our friends still hand-fly approaches to minimums and can tell us what that the heavy letter "v" in the SIAP's (Standard Instrument Approach Procedure) profile means. (See profile view below and click here for the full approach chart -- 80 KB.) Be a friend: What does the "v" mean? (The one below the words, "*1.1 NM to RW34L".)


a. VOR
b. VFR-only
c. VFR Descent Point
d. Visual Descent Point
e. VASI
4. Time to test your knowledge of secret air traffic controller terms. To avoid setting off the Snitch, which could lead to a Deal, controllers utilize URET to separate Whales from BUFs. What does URET mean?
a. User Request Evaluation Tool
b. Unverified Radar Ellipsoid Target
c. Urgent Radar Evaluation Technique
d. Unified Receiver Enhanced Target
5. You're cruising along, whistling a merry tune, VFR, at 5500 feet, eastbound into the rising sun. You're receiving radar flight following from an Approach Controller, who sounds as though she's been awake all night and possibly half the day before that. Chances are, she was. She calls to you, "Traffic, twelve o'clock, five miles, opposite direction, converging, altitude unknown." You squint into the pink-smeared dawn through the bug juice and oil grime and silently curse yourself for not cleaning the windshield between annual inspections. After a while the controller tells you, "Traffic no longer observed." This means:
a. The traffic target has turned away and is no longer a factor.
b. The traffic target is now squawking VFR (1200).
c. The traffic target has vanished. (Poof!)
d. The traffic target has passed you and is no longer a factor.
6. As Art Linkletter used to say, "Controllers say the darnedest things." OK, he probably never said that, but chances are you've heard a radar air traffic controller say, "Stop altitude squawk." This means the pilot should:
a. Turn off the transponder's 4096 Mode A.
b. Turn off the transponder's automatic altitude reporting feature.
c. Ident.
d. Recycle the transponder (turn off and back on).
e. Squawk standby.
7. Sometimes radar controllers tell air crews to stop doing even sillier sounding things. Here's a headsetful of real, but rare, ATC phraseology from the ATC Handbook 7110.65: "Stop Burst, Buzzer, Stream." What in the Mickey Mouse House could that mean? (Pick most plausible answer.)
a. Warnings to the Flying Clown Act at Oshkosh
b. ATC request to quit jamming
c. ATC request to clean up your phraseology
d. Phraseology to inhibit weather radar anomalous propagation (AP)
8. Instrument pilots should already know this phrase, but VFR pilots -- including Sport Pilots -- should also know what it means when ATC asks a pilot to report "Procedure Turn Inbound." What segment of the instrument approach is Procedure Turn Inbound?
a. That point of the PT over the FAF on the ILS above MVA prior to MDA
b. That point when intercepting an arc but not yet to the glide slope
c. That point of a procedure-turn maneuver where course reversal has been completed and an aircraft is established inbound on the initial approach segment
d. That point of a procedure-turn maneuver where course reversal has been completed and an aircraft is established inbound on the intermediate approach segment or final approach course.
9. An Outer Area is a circular swath of controlled airspace offering ATC radar service and is associated with Class (_____) airspace and its radius usually extends to (_____) nm from the primary airport. Please fill in those blanks.
a. E (Surface Area), 20
b. D, 4
c. B, 30
d. C, 20
10. Pilots casually discuss "altitude." But think for a moment about all the different types of altitudes: density altitude, critical altitude, plus decision, minimum-descent and crossing altitudes to name a few. Please define cardinal altitudes. They are:
a. Odd or even thousand-foot altitudes
b. Odd or even 500-foot altitudes
c. Altitudes along migratory flyways
d. ATC assigned altitudes above 3000 feet AGL