Q 01/05

NASA modified two 747 jumbo jets to carry which spacecraft piggyback on top of the fuselage?

A) The Apollo capsule

B) The Space Shuttle

C) The Skylab station

D) The Hubble telescope

Answer · why

B) The Space Shuttle

The Space Shuttle rode home on an airliner's back whenever it landed away from Florida, hoisted into place by a giant gantry called a Mate-Demate Devi...

Q 02/05

Airbus ferries wings and fuselage sections between its factories in a bulbous transport named after which whale?

A) Beluga

B) Narwhal

C) Orca

D) Humpback

Answer · why

A) Beluga

Beluga started as a nickname for the aircraft officially called the Super Transporter, and it caught on so well that Airbus adopted it.

Q 03/05

D. B. Cooper parachuted from the rear airstair of which three-engined airliner during his 1971 hijacking?

A) Lockheed TriStar

B) Douglas DC-10

C) Yakovlev Yak-42

D) Boeing 727

Answer · why

D) Boeing 727

The Boeing 727 had a staircase built in under its tail, and after copycat hijackings the type was fitted with a latch, the Cooper vane, that stops the...

Q 04/05

Heating at supersonic speed made Concorde's fuselage do what during each transatlantic flight?

A) Fade from white to grey

B) Bend upward at the nose

C) Stretch several inches

D) Shrink by a few inches

Answer · why

C) Stretch several inches

Concorde would stretch several inches in cruise, by as much as 300 mm, as air friction heated its aluminium skin.

Q 05/05

Which heavy metal band toured the world in a 757 airliner named Ed Force One, flown by its singer?

A) Metallica

B) Iron Maiden

C) Judas Priest

D) Def Leppard

Answer · why

B) Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden's frontman Bruce Dickinson was also a commercial airline pilot, and the jet's name was picked in a competition on the band's website.