Q 01/05

What name did US paratroopers start shouting as they jumped from planes in 1940?

A) Geronimo

B) Sitting Bull

C) Crazy Horse

D) Cochise

Answer · why

A) Geronimo

Geronimo: by the usual account, a soldier teased about his nerves the night before a test jump promised to yell it to prove he wasn't scared.

Q 02/05

What do skydivers call pulling both steering toggles just before landing to slow a ram-air canopy?

A) Flaring

B) Stalling

C) Spiraling

D) Swooping

Answer · why

A) Flaring

Flaring pulls the canopy's tail down, turning forward speed into lift so the jumper can touch down softly.

Q 03/05

In AD 852, Armen Firman is said to have jumped from a tower with a cloak in which Spanish city?

A) Seville

B) Toledo

C) Córdoba

D) Granada

Answer · why

C) Córdoba

Córdoba, though the story may be a muddled version of that of Abbas ibn Firnas, a Córdoba inventor who is said to have tried to glide.

Q 04/05

Leonardo da Vinci's parachute sketch gave its canopy which shape?

A) conical

B) domed

C) rectangular

D) pyramidal

Answer · why

D) pyramidal

Pyramidal, and replicas really flew: British skydiver Adrian Nicholas tested one in 2000, and a Swiss jumper rode another all the way down in 2008.

Q 05/05

Which unidentified hijacker parachuted from a Boeing 727 in 1971 with $200,000 and was never found?

A) D. B. Cooper

B) Richard McCoy

C) Frank Abagnale

D) Frederick Hahneman

Answer · why

A) D. B. Cooper

D. B. Cooper jumped over the woods of Washington state, and the FBI stopped actively investigating in 2016 without ever identifying him.