You’re a smart guy, right? Sure you are! And have we got something for you. Its our FareCompare Quiz. Might want to practice first, with Quiz #1, before tackling Quiz #2. Okay, ready? Good luck!

By Karlene Lukovitz

Think you know flying? Prove it! Test your knowledge with the FareCompare Quiz, version 2.0. And if you haven’t seen our first quiz, click here.

Take the Test!

Its not easy, but its not impossible either. Take your best shot (no Googling!), check out the answers and well tell you if youre an aviation expert or not.

QUESTIONS:

1. In the 1960s, who managed to masquerade as a Pan Am pilot, acting as co-pilot on numerous flights and even passing fake Pan Am payroll checks?

A. Joseph Pistone
B. Anthony Angelone III
C. Frank Abagnale, Jr.
D. Dean Martin

2. Name the U.S. airports/cities corresponding to these official codes:

A. LGA
B. PDX
C. PWM
D. MCO
E. PVD (extra credit)

3. On what airline did the Beatles first invade the U.S., in 1964?

A. United
B. British Airways
C. Pan Am
D. KLM

4. What airline flies only Boeing 737s?

A. Continental
B. Southwest
C. Northwest
D. Air Wisconsin

5. What was the original name of JFK International Airport?

6. Match the aeronautical notables with their biographical facts (choose from Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes, and Richard Branson):

A. Dropped out of school at age 16
B. His mother who pretended to be male in order to fly planes during WWII and later worked as an airline hostess
C. Worked as a nurses aide and social worker before becoming an aviator
D. Had his plane engineers design a bra
E. Invented a pump that kept hearts and other organs alive outside of the body

7. Match these famous figures in aviation Leonardo Da Vinci, Howard Hughes, Brigadier Gen. Paul W. Tibbets, Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh with their quotes:

A. Fuel is running low. We are running north and south.
B. If I made any mistake, it was in working too hard and in doing too much of it with my own hands.”
C. If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
D. Second thoughts? No…I had no problem with it.
E. The great bird will make its first flight, filling the whole world with amazement, filling all records with its fame, and bringing eternal glory to its birthplace.

8. When and on what airline was the first meal served on a commercial flight?

A. 1927, on American Airlines
B. 1919, on KLM
C. 1946, on Northwest

9. How did Charles Lindbergh deal with bathroom breaks during his cross-Atlantic flight?

10. What city can boast being the birthplace of Orville Wright, and the site of much of the Wright brothers research that led to the first manned air flight?

A. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina
B. Dayton, Ohio
C. Charleston, South Carolina

ANSWERS (Score one point for each correct answer, except where noted.)

1. C: Frank Abagnale, Jr. detailed his many con-man exploits in his bio, Catch Me If You Can, which was made into a movie starring Leonard DiCaprio in 2002. (Joseph Pistone, AKA Donny Brasco, is the FBI agent whose true story of successfully infiltrating the mob became a Johnny Depp movie in 1997.)

2. Score one point for each correct answer on A through D. Give yourself another two points if you nailed E. A: La Guardia, New York City; B: Portland International Airport, Portland, Oregon; C. Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine; D: Orlando International Airport, Orlando, Florida; E: T.F. Green Airport, Providence, Rhode Island

3. C: A Pan Am Boeing 707-331, Clipper Defiance, flew the Fab Four into JFK.

4. B: Southwest

5. Getting this one right rates three points. New York International Airport was its official dedication name when it opened in July 1948. It was renamed Idlewild Airport in December 1948 due to its link to the Idlewild Golf Course, and finally renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport in December 1963, after the Presidents assassination on November 22nd.

6. Score one point for each correct answer: A: Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways, whose academic performance was hindered by dyslexia, dropped out of Buckinghshire, England-based Stowe School as a teen, to start a magazine for students; B: Also Branson. His mom, Eve, carried off a male impersonation in order to learn to glide RAF planes, and subsequently became a British South American Airways hostess (see Branson’s autobiography); C: Amelia Earhart (see official bio) D: Howard Hughes had an underwire bra designed to seamlessly support Jane Russells 38-D breasts in the 1941 film The Outlaw, but Russell claimed she secretly wore her own bras, lining them with tissue paper to achieve the same effect; E: Charles Lindbergh. In the years following his famed trans-Atlantic flight in the Spirit of St. Louis, his work with French surgeon/Nobel Prize winner Alexis Carrel laid the groundwork for organ transplants and the artificial heart (see this Lindbergh bio).

7. Score one point for each correct answer: A: Amelia Earhart. These were among the last words heard from Earhart, by radio, before she disappeared en route to Howland Island in the middle of the Pacific. Earhart also once said: Please know I am quite aware of the hazards.; B: Howard Hughes, commenting on the mistakes made in building the “Spruce Goose.”; C: Charles Lindbergh; D: Paul W. Tibbets, commenting on dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima, in an interview with Studs Terkel published in The UK Guardian in 2002. Tibbets, age 89 at the time, added: I got into the air corps to defend the United States to the best of my ability. That’s what I believe in and that’s what I work for.; E: Leonardo Da Vinci, anticipating the invention of mechanical flight in 1505

8. B: It appears (airlines aren’t eager to grab this credit) that KLM was the first to offer pre-packaged food on a flight between London and Paris in 1919.

9. Paper cups

10. Take two points for correct answer. C: Dayton, Ohio

HOW YOU RANK

Aeronautics Animal (20 to 25 points): You were raised by bald eagles, and became a flight attendant the summer you graduated from high school.

Traveling Titan (15 to 19 points): You seem to be flying off somewhere almost constantly, making you either extremely well-paid or a glutton for punishment.

Bio Baby (10 to 14 points): You don’t care much about flying, but have nearly total recall of every odd fact you’ve ever read about famous people. Consider cutting back on those hours watching the Biography Channel.

Otherwise Occupied (9 points or fewer): You stumbled on this FareCompare quiz while checking out super-cheap tickets to Vegas, and basically only got the movie and bathroom break questions right.