Aviation
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7correct to beat the crowd
193 free Aviation trivia questions with answers — technology quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
59 free Aviation trivia questions with answers. Airplanes are the most-studied machines most of us climb into without a second thought, and this quiz is for the people who do think about them. It covers the first 12-second hop at Kitty Hawk, why the 747 has a hump and the Comet had to be grounded, how fast Concorde really flew and why not faster, what black boxes are actually made to look like, and who holds the paper airplane records. The early questions suit anyone who has looked out of a window seat; the later ones are for people who know an empennage from a nacelle. Some are about physics, some about famous flights and record-setting aircraft, and a few about the strange trivia of Air Force One and the Spruce Goose. Every answer has been checked against a published source and carries a link, so you can settle an argument at the gate. Good for kids who love planes, pilots in training and anyone in the aisle seat with time to kill.
30 of 193 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who is credited with the first controlled, sustained flight in a heavier-than-air aircraft?
The Wright brothers
Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first controlled, sustained flight of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft, the Wright Flyer, on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Q 02Which airliner, the only full-length double-deck jet ever built, entered service in 2007?
Airbus A380
The Airbus A380 seats 525 in a typical layout and is certified for up to 853; Airbus ended production in 2021.
Q 03Of the four fundamental forces of flight, which acts opposite to thrust, balancing it in steady level flight?
Drag
Drag opposes thrust; in steady level flight the four forces pair off, thrust against drag and lift against weight.
Q 04Which airport was the world's busiest by passenger traffic in 2024?
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta handled about 108 million passengers in 2024, ranking first in the world; it is the primary hub of Delta Air Lines.
Q 05Who was the first woman to complete a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean?
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart flew solo and nonstop from Newfoundland to Northern Ireland on May 20-21, 1932, the first woman to cross the Atlantic alone.
Q 06Which hinged surfaces on the trailing edge of each wing work in opposition to control an aircraft's roll?
Ailerons
Ailerons move in opposite directions to roll the aircraft around its longitudinal axis, tilting the lift vector to change its path.
Q 07Besides Newton's laws, which principle tying fast airflow to low pressure is used to explain lift?
Bernoulli's Principle
Bernoulli's Principle links faster flow to lower pressure; the 'equal transit time' version taught in schools is false, since air over the wing arrives well before air underneath.
Q 08Which engineer designed the first successful single-main-rotor helicopter with a tail rotor for anti-torque?
Igor Sikorsky
Igor Sikorsky's VS-300 flew tethered on 14 September 1939 and made its first free flight on 13 May 1940, establishing the single-main-rotor, tail-rotor layout most helicopters use.
Q 09Which experimental German aircraft was the first in the world to fly on turbojet power, in August 1939?
Heinkel He 178
The Heinkel He 178, flown by test pilot Erich Warsitz on 27 August 1939, was the first aircraft to fly on turbojet power; the sole airframe was destroyed in a 1943 Berlin air raid.
Q 10Which test pilot first officially exceeded the speed of sound in level flight, on 14 October 1947?
Chuck Yeager
Chuck Yeager took the experimental Bell X-1 to Mach 1.05 at 45,000 feet, and collected both the Collier and Mackay trophies the following year.
Q 11Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight, the first nonstop from New York across the Atlantic, ended in which city?
Paris
Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis outside Paris on 21 May 1927, about 33.5 hours and 3,600 miles after leaving New York; it was the first solo crossing of the Atlantic by air.
Q 12Concorde, the Anglo-French supersonic airliner, was withdrawn from service in which year?
2003
Concorde entered service in January 1976 and was retired in 2003: Air France stopped in May, and British Airways flew the final commercial flight on 24 October 2003.
Q 13What colour are aircraft 'black boxes' actually required to be?
Bright orange
Flight recorders are painted bright orange so investigators can spot them among wreckage and underwater; the 'black box' name is a misnomer.
Q 21Which airliner, the first commercial jet, was grounded in 1954 after metal-fatigue crashes?
De Havilland Comet
The de Havilland Comet, in service from 1952, was grounded in 1954 after two broke up in flight; fatigue cracks had started at the corners of square cut-outs in the pressurised fuselage.
Q 22Which airline was the launch customer whose demands produced the Boeing 747?
Pan Am
Pan Am ordered 25 in April 1966 and flew the first one in January 1970.
Q 23Why does the Boeing 747 have its famous 'hump'?
So the cockpit sits above a nose cargo door
Boeing expected supersonic jets to make the 747 obsolete as a passenger plane, so it was designed to convert easily to a freighter.
Q 14Which airliner, first flown in February 1969, was the first to be called a jumbo jet?
Boeing 747
It earned the nickname as the world's first wide-body airliner, and was certified in December of the same year.
Q 15The Wright Flyer's first flight on December 17, 1903 lasted how long?
12 seconds
Orville Wright's first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet into a strong headwind; the brothers made three more flights that day, the last lasting 59 seconds.
Q 16Before building airplanes, the Wright brothers ran what kind of business in Dayton, Ohio?
A printing and bicycle shop
A printing and bicycle shop gave the brothers their mechanical skills, and their belief that an unstable machine could be balanced with practice came from riding and repairing bikes.
Q 17How did the Wrights decide who would attempt the first powered flight, on December 14, 1903?
By coin toss
Wilbur won, stalled after three seconds and damaged the Flyer, so it was Orville's turn three days later.
Q 18What is the long, thin main body of an airplane called?
The fuselage
The fuselage is the aircraft's central body, from the French fuselé, 'spindle-shaped'; it joins the wings and tail and carries the crew, payload and systems.
Q 19Which control surface, mounted on the tail fin, controls an aircraft's yaw?
Rudder
The horizontal stabilizer carries the elevators, which handle pitch; the ailerons on the wings handle roll.
Q 20On commercial flights, cabin pressure is kept equivalent to an altitude no higher than what?
8,000 feet
Airworthiness rules cap cabin altitude at 8,000 feet at the aircraft's maximum cruising altitude; newer jets such as the Boeing 787 hold the cabin nearer 6,000 feet for comfort.
Q 24The 747 was built near which Washington city, in the world's largest building by volume?
Everett
Boeing assembled every 747 at its Everett, Washington plant, the world's largest building by volume; the last of 1,574 was delivered to Atlas Air in January 2023.
Q 25How many Concordes were built in total?
Twenty
Air France and British Airways got seven each; eighteen of the twenty survive in museums.
Q 26Concorde's droop nose was there for what reason?
Landing visibility
The nose was lowered so pilots could see the runway over the long delta wing on approach.
Q 27Which family of narrow-body jets is the best-selling airliner ever built?
Airbus A320
The Airbus A320 family overtook the Boeing 737 in total orders in October 2019; introduced in 1988, it pioneered digital fly-by-wire and side-stick controls in airliners.
Q 28Which German airline was the first to put the Boeing 737 into service, in 1968?
Lufthansa
Lufthansa was the 737's launch customer, ordering 21 of the 737-100 in 1965 as the first non-US airline to launch a Boeing jet, and put it into service in February 1968.
Q 29The Boeing 787 Dreamliner was the first airliner to have an airframe made mainly from what?
Composite materials
Its fuselage is built from one-piece composite barrel sections instead of riveted aluminium sheets, part of a claimed 20 percent fuel saving over the 767.
Q 30The Antonov An-225 Mriya, the heaviest aircraft ever built, was originally designed to carry what?
The Buran space shuttle
The An-225 was built in 1988 to carry the Buran space shuttle and Energia rocket parts on its back; the only one completed was destroyed at Hostomel during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.