Pop Quiz: Astonishing Aviation Tales

by Brian Dunning
September 24, 2024

Not everyone on the planet is an aviation buff, in fact, the majority of you probably wouldn't know the L-049 variant of the Lockheed Constellation from the L-649 (LOL – as if!!). Therefore I have carefully crafted this aviation themed pop quiz, based on topics covered in selected Skeptoid podcast episodes, to appeal more to your general knowledge and your ability to guess based on context. So if you're not an aviation nut, don't shy away. Every Skeptoid listener should be able to do all right.

We have 15 questions for you today, each based on a previous Skeptoid episode dealing with a particular aviation-related mystery. Since you obviously remember every word of every Skeptoid episode since 2006, you should have no trouble getting 100%. And if you don't, then just wing it (that's my aviation themed joke for the day). There is actually one question in here where you'll have to know a type of plane, so we're going to get that one out of the way first. And feel free to take all the time you need on each question; just pause your podcast player before I give the answer.

Episode #563: The Ghost of Flight 401

In 1972, an airliner crashed in Florida's Everglades, killing most of the people on board. The story became famous after a novelist wrote a fictionalized account in which people began seeing the ghost of the pilot on board other airliners of the same type, in which salvaged pieces from the crashed plane had been installed. Adding to the story's popularity was that the aircraft type was one of the hot new designs of the time. What type of plane was it?

A. McDonnell Douglas DC-10
B. Lockheed L-1011
C. Boeing 737

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is B, the Lockheed L-1011. A big clue that the story was pure fiction was the fact that no parts from airliners that crash and are completely destroyed are ever salvaged and reused, but that's not something that the average person would be likely to know.

Episode #22: Flight 93

On September 11, 2001, two hijacked planes crashed into New York's Twin Towers. A third struck the Pentagon. A fourth, believed to have been headed for the Capitol, crashed en route following an attempted retaking of the plane by the passengers. In what state did it crash?

A. New York
B. New Jersey
C. Pennsylvania

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is C, Pennsylvania. The site is now a memorial to the passengers who died, but predictably, conspiracy theorists continue to graffiti their memory with their crackpot theories.

Episode #545: First in Flight

Most of the world agree Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first to achieve powered controlled flight; but in France, they give this honor to Brazilian Frenchman Alberto Santos-Dumont, even though his aircraft was far less practical and only achieved short straight flights while the Wrights were flying all over the place for as long as their fuel held out. Why do they still consider him the first?

A. The Wright Brothers didn't accomplish their deed in front of French officials.
B. The Wright Brothers' flights were never documented.
C. Santos-Dumont actually made successful flights before the Wrights.

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is A, the Wrights did not fly in front of officials from the French Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. The reason is twofold: First, they lived in the United States, not France; and second, the federation didn't yet exist when they first flew. It was formed basically to certify flight as a French accomplishment.

Episode #99: TWA Flight 800

In July 1996, this 747 jumbo jet took off over the Atlantic Ocean and exploded 12 minutes later, killing everyone on board, and sparking decades of false conspiracy theories. What city had it just taken off from?

A. Washington, DC
B. Fort Lauderdale
C. New York

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is C, New York. Incredibly, the NTSB managed to recover all 230 bodies and over 95% of the wreckage from the ocean floor.

Episode #595: Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370

In March 2014, this 777 jumbo jet mysteriously went silent about 40 minutes after taking off from Kuala Lumpur. It flew for hours, making at least two turns, and finally disappeared somewhere over the Indian Ocean when its fuel ran out – but nobody knows exactly where. Which of the following did this incident prompt?

A. Mandated filing of flight plans for all commercial flights over water
B. Mandated use of satellite-based ADS-B tracking for commercial flights
C. Mandated use of black box flight recorders for commercial flights

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is B, satellite-based ADS-B tracking. It stands for Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast and transmits constant position data for aircraft that use it. Until this became a thing, commercial aircrafts' positions were unknown as they spend most of their time outside radar coverage.

Episode #809: The Avro Arrow Conspiracy

In the late 1950s, Avro Canada produced the world's best interceptor aircraft, the Avro Arrow, but then soon canceled it and destroyed the prototypes. Conspiracy theories abounded, but which of the following is among the true reasons for its cancellation?

A. The advent of nuclear ICBMs rendered interceptor aircraft obsolete
B. The American F-108 came out and made the Arrow obsolete
C. The Arrow's delta wing design proved dangerously unstable

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is A, the advent of nuclear ICBMs. It's the same reason the American F-108 never went into production. In fact, the Soviets launched Sputnik I on the very same day that the first Avro Arrow prototype rolled out of the hangar for the press to see.

Episode #547: The Ghost Fighter Plane of Pearl Harbor

A fictional yarn, first published in a 1945 anthology, told how a year and a day after Pearl Harbor, a P-40 bearing pre-war markings and shot all to pieces, came in to land at Pearl but crashed, leaving no trace of a pilot. Its insignia was determined to be pre-war because of an import change made to the US aircrafts' insignias in 1942. What was it?

A. Removing the red circle inside the white star to avoid confusion with the Japanese rising sun
B. Adding a red circle inside the white star to differentiate US planes from Australian
C. Adding bars to either side of the blue circle to make it easier to identify from a distance

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is A, removing the red circle, since a red circle was the Japanese "rising sun" insignia. Answer C, adding bars to either side of the circle, happened in 1943, as experiments showed that shape was more important than color when seen from a great distance.

Episode #27: Chemtrails

A popular conspiracy theory claims that the contrails sometimes left by high-altitude airliners are not actually contrails, but trails of poison gas being sprayed by the government to dumb down the population. Which of the following is true of actual, real-world contrails?

A. They are produced only by jet engines, not by piston engines
B. The temperature needs to be below -40º
C. The altitude needs to be above 40,000 feet

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is B, the temperature must be below -40º. And if you're wondering why I didn't specify Celsius or Fahrenheit, it's because -40º is the point at which those two scales are the same.

Episode #154: Breaking the Sound Barrier

Lots of pilots have claimed to be the first to have broken the sound barrier, going all the way back to World War II. But prior to Chuck Yeager in the Bell X-1, only one claim is truly plausible: George Welch, a civilian test pilot, flying which type of aircraft?

A. A prototype of the X-1
B. The X-15 space plane
C. An XP-86 fighter plane

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is C. Welch absolutely broke the sound barrier in his XP-86 a few months after Chuck Yeager, when there was an official Mach meter installed in his plane. But the same plane, without the official Mach meter, allegedly created sonic booms twice before Yeager's flight – including once while Yeager was strapped into the X-1 but still attached to the B-29 mothership. George was making a statement.

Episode #355: The Vanishing B-25

In 1956, a B-25 medium bomber ditched into a Pennsylvania river, and amazingly was never found – triggering all sorts of conspiracy theories. But a B-25 made bigger headlines inside the United States back in 1945 when one crashed into what New York City landmark:

A. The Empire State Building
B. The Statue of Liberty
C. The Chrysler Building

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is A, the Empire State Building. The plane struck the building in zero visibility fog after narrowly missing the Chrysler Building, killing all three people aboard the plane and eleven people inside the building. The building was not seriously damaged and reopened two days later.

Episode #417: The Disappearance of Flight 19

One of the most famous Bermuda Triangle stories is that of Flight 19, a group of five TBM Avengers on a 1945 training flight, all of which disappeared without a trace. There's no mystery as far as the Navy is concerned. What caused the planes to be lost?

A. They engaged a German U-Boat and ended up with insufficient fuel to return
B. The instructor was really bad at navigating
C. Their compasses gave crazy readings which sent them in the wrong direction

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is B, the instructor, Lt. Charles Taylor, was really bad at navigating. He was so bad he thought they were west of Florida over the Gulf of Mexico instead of east of Florida over the Atlantic. Twice in combat in the Pacific, he got lost and had to ditch and be rescued. The only mystery is how he ever got to be a flight instructor.

Episode #406: The Missing Bandleader

During World War II, this famous American bandleader was lost when his plane went down over the English Channel en route to Paris. Who was he?

A. Duke Ellington
B. Glenn Miller
C. Benny Goodman

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is B, Glenn Miller. It's been speculated that his small plane may have been struck by bombs being jettisoned by British Lancaster bombers returning to their base. More likely they just went down in the same poor conditions that forced the Lancasters to scrub their own mission and return.

Episode #255: Superhuman Strength

The phenomenon of "hysterical strength" conferred by adrenalin during a crisis is well documented. One famous case was in 1988 when a guy lifted a crashed helicopter so the pilot could be pulled out. The helicopter was famously used in what TV show?

A. Airwolf
B. Miami Vice
C. Magnum, P.I.

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is C, Magnum, P.I. Although the TV show had ended, this was the same pilot and famous yellow, red, and brown striped MD-500 helicopter featured throughout the series. It was now being used for transportation work for an electrical utility.

Episode #295: Amelia Earhart

Few pilots held as many records as Amelia Earhart. When she disappeared in 1937, what record was she attempting to set?

A. First solo flight around the world
B. First flight around the world
C. First flight around the world by a female pilot

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is C, first flight around the world by a female pilot. The first flight around the world was accomplished in 1924 by four men flying two planes, and the first solo circumnavigation was in 1933 by Wiley Post. The first female pilot to circumnavigate solo wouldn't be until 1964 by Geraldine Mock.

Episode #315: The Tehran UFO

In 1976, a pair of Iranian F-4 Phantom jets scrambled in pursuit of an alleged UFO. One of the objects they reported as "similar to a star but much brighter" has been fairly conclusively identified as what?

A. A comet named Comet West
B. The International Space Station
C. Jupiter

Reveal the answer

The correct answer is C, Jupiter. Jupiter is known to have been in the evening sky in the exact direction the pilots claimed the bright "mother ship" was. They did not report seeing two such lights, and since we know Jupiter was there, there's no room left for another object.

And so we conclude our aviation pop quiz. How did you do? Throw Skeptoid a bone and post your score on your favorite social media, if any, and challenge all your friends to beat you. Fool them into becoming new Skeptoid listeners.

Total up your score! If you got 12 or more right, congratulations, you are a Skeptoid Illuminatus Master Skeptic! If you got 8 or more right, you are well on your way to becoming a star skeptical guru. And if you got 4 or more right, well then, you may need to climb Mount Skeptoid and spend some time sitting at the master's feet and absorbing wisdom. Or, if you don't feel like doing that, then just listen to the back catalog of episodes more often!

By Brian Dunning
Follow @BrianDunning