Early Flight and Forces
These animals inspired early flight. Name the body parts they flap to produce forward motion.
What are birds and their wings?
Classify a scheduled airline flight and a private recreational flight into their two aviation categories.
What are commercial aviation and general aviation? General aviation covers civilian flying outside airline operations.
The WAFS and WFTD joined to form this wartime group. Name it and one career barrier its members faced after returning home
Who were the WASP? Many found it difficult to continue careers in aviation.
Name four jet-engine parts: one admits air, one compresses it, one extracts energy, and one releases gases. Who first used jets: civilians or military?
What are intake, compressor, turbine, and exhaust? The military used the earliest jets.
Name two tools for exploring distant space without sending people, then one technology benefit and one international benefit of space exploration.
What are telescopes and robotic probes? Benefits include technological advances and peaceful international cooperation.
Name da Vinci’s pyramid-shaped safety device, then the two materials used for wings in the Icarus myth.
What are a parachute, feathers, and wax?
This broad field includes flight inside and beyond the atmosphere. Name it and one economic benefit of passenger airlines.
What is aerospace? Airlines support jobs, trade, tourism, and economic growth.
Name the Black military pilots whose achievements supported integration, and explain why controlling the air mattered in World War II.
Who were the Tuskegee Airmen? Air superiority helped ground forces win battles.
Give three passenger-travel advantages associated with jet aircraft: one involving speed, one involving weather, and one involving safety.
What are faster travel, the ability to fly above much weather, and safer flying?
In the New Space Race, what non-government groups participate, why reuse rocket parts, and what was the proposed Mars One destination and goal?
What are private companies, lower costs through reuse, and establishing a settlement on Mars?
Name a balloon’s three main parts and explain how heating its air helps it rise.
What are envelope, burner, and basket? Heated air is less dense; buoyancy provides an upward force.
A team revisits its design and defends changes with test results. Name the practice used to defend its ideas; must practices follow one order?
What is arguing from evidence? No; engineering practices can be repeated and used in different orders.
Name the first American woman licensed as a pilot, then the Black woman who trained in France because U.S. schools excluded her.
Who are Harriet Quimby and Bessie Coleman?
Aircraft designers choose these lightweight, durable materials, but damaged sections can be hard to fix. Name the materials and the drawback.
What are composites? They can be difficult to repair.
Congress created this federal agency in 1958 for the Space Race. Name it, then explain whether the ISS belongs to the United States alone.
What is NASA? The ISS is an international research partnership, not solely a U.S. project.
These brothers built a powered, controlled airplane using earlier research. Name them and their tool for testing model wings.
Who are the Wright brothers? What is a wind tunnel?
Name the flying vehicle in a UAS and the certificate, minimum age, and language ability needed to qualify as a professional remote pilot.
What are a drone, a remote pilot certificate, age 16, and the ability to read, speak, write, and understand English?
Mail pilots followed a chain of these route markers. Name them and explain why airplanes improved mail delivery compared with trains.
What are beacons? Aircraft could carry mail faster than railroads.
Name the cockpit type that uses digital screens, then two traditional six-pack instruments: one shows altitude and one shows aircraft attitude.
What are a glass cockpit, an altimeter, and an attitude indicator or artificial horizon?
Name the two NASA programs that prepared for Moon landings, then the astronaut whose 1969 Moon walk marked the race-to-the-Moon victory.
What are Mercury and Gemini? Who is Neil Armstrong?
Name the flight force that opposes motion and describe the air pressure above a wing compared with below it during lift.
What is drag? Pressure above the wing is lower than below it.
For a basic drone flight away from structures, name the usual altitude ceiling and visibility requirement. May pilots automatically fly over people?
What are 400 feet above ground and visual line of sight? No; operations over people must meet applicable FAA requirements.
Name the war that rapidly advanced early airplane designs, then the civilian aircraft type that benefited from World War II military developments.
What are World War I and commercial jet aircraft?
A pilot follows visible roads, rivers, and landmarks to find the route. Name this basic navigation method.
What is visual navigation, or pilotage?
Name the Soviet satellite that raised U.S. spying concerns, then the NACA workers who performed complex calculations before modern electronic computers.
What is Sputnik? Who were the women known as human computers?