How air-brained are you? Test your general aviation knowledge on matters including safety, history, training or anything related to flying! Compiled by James Allan

Answer explanations are listed below the quiz!

Give our other air-brained quizzes a go

Quiz I | Quiz II | Quiz III | Quiz IV | Quiz V | Quiz VI | Quiz VII | Quiz VIII | Quiz IX

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1 b In July 1919 Major J E M Pritchard of the RAF flew across the Atlantic in airship R.34 from East Fortune in Scotland to New York. Since nobody on the ground was qualified to handle the mooring of the airship, Pritchard volunteered to jump and organise the landing party while the R.34 circled about 1,000 feet above the field before landing. It is said that in true British officer fashion, he showered and shaved before parachuting into America, and photographs confirm that he arrived in dress uniform complete with medal ribbons and carrying his swagger stick.

2 d Highland Airways started this service on Saturday 29th May 1934 using a de Havilland DH84 Dragon piloted by Captain E E ‘Ted’ Fresson and for a period it operated every weekday thereafter.

3 c Erich Hartmann, a Luftwaffe pilot on the eastern front during WW2 achieved a total of 352 victims, mainly Russian aircraft but including seven American P-51 Mustangs. His last victim was a Yak-9 shot down over Brno, Slovakia on 8th May 1945 just hours before WW2 ended.

4 e Including the heavy bomber, maritime patrol and anti-submarine versions of the Liberator, 19,256 were built (compared with 12,731 B-17s). Of the fighter aircraft the Thunderbolt and Mustang were built in the largest numbers (15,683 and 15,586 respectively

5 b

6 b The Beechcraft Plainsman was to have a flat-four aircraft engine that powered an electric generator. It had 4-wheel drive with an individual electric motor in each wheel and a lightweight aluminium body. The revolutionary design never got beyond prototype form.

7 d The “8-Track” tape recorder, which was developed by the Lear Jet company, met with limited success only in the United States and by the 1980s it had been killed off by the invention of tape cassettes by the Philips company

8 d The antenna is that of a long-range maritime surveillance X-Band radar manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries. It is used in fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and drones for surveillance, iceberg spotting, S & R and other purposes.

9 d (c is wrong because aircraft tyres don’t generally have any laid down age limit.)

10 d The buoyancy of a helium balloon makes it move in the opposite direction to the g-force affecting it, thus it rises initially to the cabin ceiling. During acceleration along the runway passengers feel the g-force pressing them into the back of their seats (as well as down onto their seats) and the balloon reacts by moving along the ceiling in the opposite direction, towards the flight deck.

11 b The aerodrome on the hebridean island of Barra (EGPR) is a stretch of the sandy beach at Traigh Mhor bay at the north of the island. At high tide it is under water and so cannot be used. Tide times are, of course, governed primarily by movement of the moon.

12 d The ship was launched in 1938 and served initially as a light cruiser of the US Navy, known then as the USS Phoenix. In 1941 it was stationed at Pearl Harbor where it survived the Japanese Navy’s air attack undamaged

13 b Airspeed Oxford

14 a The Antonov An-225 Mriya (span 88.40 m) of which only one exists and the Hughes Spruce Goose (span 97.54 m) of which again only one exists and which has made only one flight. The largest British aircraft ever to fly was the 8-engine Bristol 167 Brabazon (span 70.10 m) and yet again only one Brabazon ever flew. About to become the world’s largest span aircraft ever to fly is the 6-engine Scaled Composites Stratolaunch designed by Bert Rutan. It has a 117.35 metre span.

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