Question: The first reported bird strike was…
- On September 7, 1908, Orville Wright reported striking a bird (while flying) near Dayton, Ohio. It was part of a flock he was reportedly chasing. (The species was not reported.)
- Calbraith Rogers, the first person to fly across the US, was killed on April 3rd, 1912, as a result of a bird striking his aircraft, the ‘Vin Fizz.’
- Not until 1960, when a Lockheed Electra taking off from Boston’s Logan Airport ingested a flock of starlings into three of the four engines, after which it stalled and crashed. Of the 72 passengers and crew on board, 62 died.
- On May 23, 1931, Quentin Bodner was struck in the face by a Canada goose at Floyd Bennett Field in New York (the very same day that it was officially opened. And although it did not strike the aircraft, it was reported as a bird strike.)
Answer: A
Subject: Unfortunate Terms
Question: What is excrescence drag?
- with respect to transport category aircraft, the drag created by waste fluid seepage from onboard lavatories through septic outlets used in ground handling, and which can freeze at altitude, building up to sizeable chunks of ‘blue ice’ that adheres to the fuselage and creates significant drag
- a drag factor due to cavities, grooves, steps, ridges, and other surface discontinuities that create non-uniform pressure distribution
- the frictional drag of an airship expressed as a flat plate cross-sectional area
- There is no such term.
Answer: B. No, you didn’t suddenly forget the two basic types of drag you learned about in private pilot ground school, namely parasite drag (form, skin friction, and interference) as well as induced drag from the development of lift. Nor is this a coy reference to things scatological. Excrescence drag is just a fancy word for skin friction drag, not really a slightly finer shade of meaning. It’s simpler name could be ‘roughness’ drag. It is expressed empirically in terms of the extra weight that would require the same amount of extra fuel to be burned, in the absence of such aeronautical warts and carbuncles. This esoterica matters mostly to wind tunnel weenies. A surface is considered hydraulically smooth when its ‘excrescences’ lie within the boundary layer.
Subject: Biblical Proportions
Question: About how much water falls as rain from an average rainstorm over one square mile?
- 2,000 gallons
- 20,000 gallons
- 200,000 gallons
- 2,000,000 gallons
Answer: D.
