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Sunday 20th July 2008
Brainteasers
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May 15, 2008

Brainteasers
Interactive Quiz #133:
Stuff You Should've Learned in Ground School

Chances are you learned how to convert Celsius to Frankenstein, but can you remember all the other testable -- and forgettable -- minutiae from your primary training days? Neither can we, so let's see what you know.

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. The world is round so that pilots can find their way home. If it were flat, some of us would fall off the edge without ever closing our flight plans. Navigating a straight line across a round planet requires an understanding of latitude and longitude (lat/long). Fill in the blank: Lines of longitude cross the (_____) at right angles.
a. Prime Meridian
b. Equinox
c. Equator
d. True Course
2. Due to a mapping error that's vexed student navigators since Henry Hudson discovered Jersey City in 1492, the geographic North Pole is located over a thousand miles from the Magnetic North Pole. (You'd think NOAA could've corrected that by now.) The angular difference between a course referenced to true north and one referenced to magnetic north is called:
a. Magnetic deviation
b. WCA
c. Magnetic variation
d. Crab angle
3. Which weather reporting or forecasting product(s) reference winds to magnetic north?
a. METAR
b. TAF
c. ATIS
d. Winds Aloft
e. All of the above
4. Lines connecting areas of equal pressure are depicted on surface weather maps. These lines are called:
a. Agonics
b. Isotonics
c. Igonics
d. Isogonics
e. Isobars
5. Refer again to Question 4: Pressure reported at each station on surface weather maps is recorded in:
a. Inches of mercury (in. Hg)
b. Inches of mercury (in. Hq)
c. Millipedes
d. Millibars
6. Balloon pilots know this one without any prompting: In the Northern Hemisphere (sorry, Brazil), as altitude is gained, wind is deflected to the right, or clockwise, due to what force?
a. Bernoulli
b. Cyclonic
c. Corleone
d. Coriolis
7. While rummaging through your old ground-school trunk in the attic, you find a rusted E6B computer, a 30-year-old Snickers bar and a Weather Depiction Chart. "Wow," you mutter as you bite into the candy bar and pick up the yellowed weather chart. "Real paper ..." You gaze at the many Sanskrit-like symbols on the chart that few pilots ever see after passing the Knowledge Test. This symbology appears over northern Texas:



The dot is actually a circle, indicating a reporting station (station model). It's filled in solid, meaning the sky there is overcast. How high is that overcast?


a. 300 feet AGL
b. 600 feet AGL
c. 300 feet variable 600 feet AGL overcast
d. 3000 feet MSL
8. It's not all about weather. Learning to fly also includes memorizing obscure regulations that, with luck and skill, you'll never need. NTSB Part 830 spells out the accident/incident notification regulations, one of which defines when an accident is deemed "fatal" and when it's merely unpleasant. According to 830.2, "Fatal injury" means any injury that results in death within what time period after the accident?
a. 24 hours
b. 7 days
c. 15 days
d. 30 days
e. 45 days
9. NTSB 830.5 prohibits crashing without proper paperwork and notification through the appropriate channels in a timely manner. Complete this thought: The operator of any civil aircraft, involved in an accident, shall, by the most expeditious means available, notify the nearest NTSB field office within what time period?
a. 24 hours
b. 36 hours
c. 48 hours
d. Immediately
10. Here's one you may not have learned in Private Pilot ground school, but all pilots should know it: What does the ATC term "CENRAP" mean?
a. Center Random Automated Routing Terminal Systems Program
b. Center Radar Approach Radar Processing
c. Central Radar Automated Radar Terminal Systems Processing
d. Center Radar Automated Radar Terminal Systems Processing
e. Center Rhythm and Poetry