Aviation can be an all-consuming affliction, and the quest for greater knowledge is a necessary precursor to acquiring the information and skills that make us better pilots, or simply one of aviation’s educated observers. Unlike many other pursuits, when it comes to the affairs of flight it is what you don’t know that can hurt you. After all, as the saying goes, the Devil's in the details. And somewhat paradoxically, it often requires a broader perception of the world around us in order to appreciate the significance of those same details.


Subject: Famous First Words:

Question: Most people know about the often misquoted famous first words uttered by mankind on any heavenly body besides Earth. They were spoken by Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon: "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind". Right? Wrong! What were the real "first words"?

A) "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." A static burst erased the "a". To this day, Neil Armstrong insists that he said it correctly.
B) Answer A is correct, with a qualifier. These really were the first words said outside the lunar module. However, the first words uttered in any communication with earth really were: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
C) Answer B is more correct--sort of--but Neil doesn't have anything on his fellow astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, who actually was reading off a checklist. At the time, there was concern that their ship might be swallowed up by a bottomless sea of lunar dust, accumulated over eons of time. No, the first words were "Contact light. Okay. Engine stop."
D) This one isn't in the official archives. When Neil was a boy, he heard his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Mazur, chewing out her husband: "You want oral sex? I'll give you oral sex--when the boy next door walks on the moon!" Though not transmitted to Houston, "Good luck, Mr. Mazur!" were really his first words.

Answer: The answer, somewhat disappointingly, is actually C. Choice D is urban legend. The words in choice C were then followed by "ACA out of detent"...and a bunch of other stuff before, 19 seconds later, the words "Houston, Tranquility Base here...") This information comes from the Apollo 11 Technical Air-To-Ground Voice Transmissions, compiled by the Data Logistics Office of the Test Division of the Apollo Program Office, in July of 1969.


Subject: Slightly Higher In Canada

Question: You're visiting Canada and flying over northern Manitoba in mid-winter. Your outside air temperature gauge reads minus 30 degrees Centigrade. About what in particular should you be worrying?

A) Your altimeter could read much higher than your actual altitude.
B) Your fuel could freeze.
C) The wings and propellers would get a better bite out of the denser air, but it requires a higher power setting.
D) A and B

Answer: A. Flying into cold air is like flying into a low pressure area: you'll be lower than your altimeter says you are. The problem is that altimeters aren’t corrected for temperature errors. On an instrument approach in the clouds, this could be serious! Canadian pilots consult government charts to determine how much altitude to add to those listed on approach procedures. At higher elevations and colder temperatures, such corrections can approach 1000 feet! (It would have to be below minus 55 C before you'd need to start worrying about choking your fuel lines with avgas slurpee, and in winter, engines and airplanes climb better on less power.)


Subject: The Chronosynclastic Infundibulum

Question: Does a bathtub or sink really drain clockwise in the Northern hemisphere, and counter-clockwise down under?

A) Absolutely. (A round sink works better, though.)
B) Coriolis force can be apparent on smaller scales only when there are absolutely no currents or internal eddies within the body of fluid. If you let the tub settle for about an hour, it would drain clockwise in the Northern hemisphere and the other way in Southern latitudes.
C) No. It's a myth. You'd need a bathtub the size of a stadium.
D) Actually, in a totally stable fluid body, there is no spiral motion towards any opening at the bottom.

Answer: The answer is C. On this smaller bathroom-sized scale, frictional and viscous forces greatly eclipse the Coriolis effect, and a draining bathtub is really just a balance of pressure gradient and centrifugal forces. When we see clockwise flow around an atmospheric high in the Northern hemisphere we are really looking at a balance of pressure gradient and Coriolis forces, which only show up in nature beginning at a scale of several hundred meters.


Subject: The "Other" Wright Brothers:

Question : Even most pilots don't know this one: In addition to Orville and Wilbur Wright, there were actually two other Wright Brothers near the turn of the 20th century who were, in a way, connected with aviation's infancy. Who were these men?

A) William and Robert Wright, the landlords of the building in which Orville and Wilbur had their bicycle shop.
B) Jedediah and Mordecai Wright, twin brothers, purchased the printing business that Orville and Wilbur sold prior to their initial investment in the new and then-booming bicycle business in 1893.
C) Bishop Milton Wright and his wife actually had two sons before the birth of Orville and Wilbur. Reuchlin was 6, and younger brother Lorin was 4 when the "elder" of the famous duo, Wilbur, was born in April of 1867.
D) In 1899, Wilbur wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution inquiring about aeronautical research. It was answered by a man whose last name also was Wright. He, too had a younger brother, however his name was Orrin, not Orville.

Answer: The answer is C. I first discovered this delectable item several years ago, when I came across The Bishop’s Boys, by Tom Crouch, NASM historian and Wright Brothers expert. (Reuchlin was pronounced ROOSH-lin, incidentally.)