History of Flight Quiz

Question: What is hypersonic speed?

Answer: Hypersonic speed is passage through the air at speeds beyond about five times the velocity of sound (Mach 5).

Question: What did English nobleman George Cayley successfully test in 1853 after studying stability, lift, and control?

Answer: The efforts of George Cayley, who devoted much of his life to aeronautical research and writing, culminated in 1853 with a full-size glider that carried his reluctant coachman on the first manned glider flight.

Question: What aeronautical engineer was the guiding genius behind the Soviet ballistic missile and spaceflight programs?

Answer: Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov was the guiding genius behind the Soviet ballistic missile and spaceflight programs, which he began testing and designing even as he was held under technical arrest during World War II.

Question: Which two aeronautical engineers, serving opposing sides during World War II, independently invented the jet engine?

Answer: American Royal Air Force College cadet Frank Whittle conceived the turbojet, which linked a compressor, combustion chamber, and turbine in the same duct, in 1928. In ignorance of Whittle’s work, German engineer Hans Joachim Pabst von Ohain independently arrived at the same concept in 1933.

Question: What airline manufacturer grew to challenge the Boeing Company through its technical innovations and fleet of diverse aircraft?

Answer: Through its innovations and a growing range of aircraft offered, Airbus Industrie became the second largest maker of commercial aircraft worldwide, challenging Boeing’s dominance and relegating McDonnell Douglas to a distant third place by the mid-1990s.

Question: How did Swiss-born physicist Auguste Piccard achieve fame even before he built the first successful deep-sea submersible in 1948?

Answer: Auguste Piccard achieved fame through his work in ballooning even before he built the first successful deep-sea submersible in 1948. He built a balloon that could penetrate the isothermal layer’s low pressure in 1930, including an airtight cabin with pressurized air.

Question: What vertical and short take-off and landing, or V/STOL, jet has been flown by both the Royal Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps?

Answer: A single-engine, “jump-jet” fighter-bomber, the Harrier jet has been flown by both the Royal Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps. The several versions of the Harrier could take off straight up or with a short roll (vertical and short take-off and landing, or V/STOL), and thus the Harrier did not need conventional runways.

Question: What was Hugo Junkers’s J-1 Blechesel, nicknamed the “Sheet Metal Donkey”?

Answer: Hugo Junkers’s J-1 Blechesel monoplane of 1915, nicknamed the “Sheet Metal Donkey,” was the first successful all-metal airplane. Junkers was an early proponent of the monoplane and all-metal construction of aircraft.

Question: What jet-powered bomber was at first designed for supersonic, high-altitude flight but entered service as a subsonic, low-level bomber incorporating stealth technology?

Answer: The B-1 was designed to reach twice the speed of sound at high altitudes and to carry nuclear bombs and short-range attack missiles, but it entered service in the United States as a subsonic, low-level bomber using stealth technology.

Question: What was the Wright brothers’ name for their unique method of controlling aircraft in flight?

Answer: Wing warping was the Wright brothers’ attempt at inducing a helical twist across the wings of an aircraft in either direction, which would allow the pilot to raise or lower either wing tip at will. Their first experiments with wing warping were made with a small biplane kite flown in Dayton, Ohio, in the summer of 1899.

Question: What is Igor Sikorsky best known for developing?

Answer: Igor Sikorsky began construction of his first helicopter in May 1909 and finally succeeded in launching a helicopter’s flight in September 1939. After his first unsuccessful attempt, he said: “I had learned enough to recognize that with the existing state of the art, engines, and materials, I would not be able to produce a successful helicopter at that time.”

Question: Which early U.S. and Soviet jet fighters engaged in history’s first large-scale jet fighter combat?

Answer: In December 1950, U.S. pilots flying F-86s began history’s first large-scale jet fighter combat against Soviet-built MiG-15s over Korea.