Pilot Quiz - Aviation Heritage

Test your knowledge of aviation’s heritage. Aircraft companies and the people prominent in development of aviation over the years are featured in the questions below.

Key to Answers: 1b, 2a, 3c, 4a, 5c, 6c, 7a, 8b, 9a, 10a

1. What aircraft company manufactured an early DC-6?

a. Douglas
b. Cessna
c. Dassault

2. In the name Piper J3, what does the J stand for?

a. Walter Jamauneau, Piper designer
b. Sequence of design evolution (A,B,C, etc)
c. From appendix J in FAA regulations

3. By the end of World War II, 80 % of all U.S. military pilots had received training in what aircraft?

a. Aeronca
b. Stearman
c. Piper J3

4. Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna, and Lloyd Stearman formed an aircraft company. Differences of designs and marketing caused a split with new companies being founded. What was the name of that original company?

a. Travel Air
b. Wright-Dayton
c. Waco

5. In 1976, a Learjet, with a prominent sportsman at the controls, took off on the opening day of the annual Aviation/Space Writers Association meeting in Denver, Colorado, flew around the world in 57 hours and 25 minutes, setting a new speed- distance record for that class airplane which still stands. The flight landed back at Denver for the pilot to make a speech before the meeting closed. Who was the pilot?

a. Footballer Joe Montana
b. Baseballer Hank Aaron
c. Golfer Arnold Palmer

6. What company produced the first pressurized single-engine piston-powered aircraft?

a. Cessna
b. Beech
c. Mooney

7. Although losing a lawsuit against the Wright Brothers for patent infringement, this man went on and by 1913, had designed three dozen aircraft types and originated mass production of aircraft. Who was he?

a. Glenn Curtiss
b. Glenn Martin
c. Donald Douglas

8. Wiley Post, the one-eyed pilot who was first to fly solo around the world, did this and set many other records in the “Winnie Mae,” a Vega aircraft manufactured by what company?

a. Cessna
b. Lockheed
c. Northrop

9. In 1959, a new record was set for light aircraft. It was a solo flight from Casablanca to Los Angeles in 58 hours and 38 minutes. Who flew it in what airplane?

a. Chuck Yeager in a Beech Bonanza
b. Jacqueline Cochran in a Cessna 180
c. Max Conrad in a Piper Comanche

10. What company was first to mass produce the small jet aircraft?

a. Lear
b. Grumman
c. Dassault Falcon