Why does the B-29 not have pilot-accessible thrust?

This setup was actually pretty common for four-engine aircraft of the day.  Look at the cockpits of airliners from DC-4 to Lockheed Constellation, and you'll always see a dedicated flight engineer station -- not to the level of managing throttles (which would require a voice command from the PIC to change power setting, impractical for the reaction times required in flight), but to manage the relatively complex and failure-prone large radial engines.  The flight engineer station persisted well into the jet era -- at least to the early versions of the 747, which first flew in 1969.

However, if you look closely at a B-29 cockpit, you'll see each pilot has an individual throttle lever set -- they're not between the yokes because of the crawlway for the bombardier station.  Rather, they're outboard of the seats, near the (presumably pitch) trim wheels.  There were also propeller controls, though they're harder to identify in a cockpit photo.  With constant speed propellers, the only control required on an immediate basis was throttle (the flight engineer managed synchronization), and both control seats had throttles, as well as the ability to feather a dead engine.


The initial search efforts did indeed take place in the South China Sea.

Interest moved to the Bay of Bengal after new evidence from military radar surveillance showed that the aircraft had turned west across the Malaysian Peninsula after contact was lost over the South China Sea. It took some time for this evidence to surface because the performance and capabilities of military radar systems are usually closely kept secrets -- presumably a lot of people in the military hierarchies had to sign off on releasing it.

Later still, additional analysis pointed to an area in the south Indian Ocean. It turned out that a single communication system aboard the plane had kept working for many hours after the South China Sea loss-of-contact. This is a satellite-based system that is usually used for routine maintenance messages, not for navigation or accident investigation. It took many weeks to get from "the plane was still alive for many hours" to "it went to the south Indian Ocean", through clever and painstaking analysis of data that the satellite company had originally collected for the purpose of tracking the health and performance of the satellite itself, rather than as a way to locate planes.

Part of the information used was how long it took for the aircraft to respond to the satellite each time it checked in (which gave the distance from the satellite to the aircraft at that time), plus minor variations in the RF frequency the aircraft responded at (which combines to give some information about its heading and velocity). The current search areas are the result of that information combined with "reasonable assumptions" about which speed the aircraft was cruising at during this period.

For some time the best analysis of the satellite data could only say that the last contact must have been either in the south Indian Ocean or somewhere around Afghanistan, but the "northern corridor" was later excluded by more detailed analysis. (It was never considered very likely, since it was much harder to imagine how the plane could stay undetected over land, where it ought to have been in view of many primary radar systems than over the ocean, outside of direct radar coverage).


How to extract the interrogator ID from a DF11 message?

Your calculation of $this->_pi just ORs the three parity bytes together,
which certainly doesn't make any sense.  I'm not sure what you hope to get out of that. Even XORing them together wouldn't seem to serve any purpose.

Addressing and checksumming in the Mode S protocol work in a funky way, in order to save bits. The last 3 bytes of a message are constructed as a CRC checksum (which Annex 10 calls "parity") of the first 4/11 bytes, XORed with an address for the "conversation" the message is part of. When you receive a message you're supposed to calculate the raw CRC on your own and then XOR it out of the bytes. What is left is the address, and by comparing it to addresses you're interested in you can see if the message was for you, or alternatively either garbled or for someone else.

In the basic Mode S interrogation protocol, this "address" is just the airframe address, and the checksum-xor-address field is named AP.  For uplink messages, transponders know what their own address are, of course -- and for downlink, radars know which addresses they have interrogated recently.

In a few other cases, the "address" is the "interrogator identifier", and the checksum-xor-address field is named PI.

For DF11, the transponder knows which II to put into its replies because it gets them out of the all-call message, and the radar knows which II corresponds to its own all-calls, so it can recognize those responses.

Finally, in squitter where the transponder sends a downlink message without being prompted by an uplink message, it sets the "address" to 0.

If you have been decoding ADS-B broadcasts, you're listening for squitter -- so you can identify them as the ones where the CRC you compute equals the PI field in the message (because XORing 0 into the CRC doesn't change it). Everything with a different address will look like checksum failures to your code.

Since the DF11 message you're showing does match the cheksum, it must be DF11 squitter. There are plenty of those to hear; TCAS depends on everyone sending them continually.

In order to find DF11 messages with a nonzero interrogator identifier you should look for messages where the last three bytes after you've XORed out the CRC do begin with 17 zeros but then have at least some of the remaining 7 bits nonzero.


Why don't black boxes have their own GPS?

First let's and define what "too many cases" means in terms of cold, hard, unfeeling numbers (as best we can):

Wikipedia has a list (admittedly incomplete) of crashes where the CVR/FDR was not recovered. There are 16 crashes listed. I'll further add Air France 447 (which took "a long time" to find), and MH370 (which is currently unrecovered), bringing the total to 18.

As Wikipedia admits their list is incomplete I'll double-and-round that in the name of being pessimistically conservative and say that since 1965 there have been 50 cases where it has taken "a long time" to recover the flight recorders (or they were never recovered).

In a single year there can be over 100 "incidents". Even if we assume the CVR/FDR data wouldn't be useful for all of them there are still many hundreds (if not thousands) of incidents since 1965 where the cockpit voice recorder and/or flight data recorders have been recovered along with other wreckage or damaged airframes - often within a matter of days or hours (as soon as investigators can get to the wreckage). That's a pretty good track record.

One could certainly argue (legitimately) that "one unrecovered flight recorder is too many", and indeed the goal is to always find the recorders and analyze their contents.
If we're being realistic about this though we're going to have to accept the fact that sometimes you're just not going to recover the recorders: Aircraft crashes are messy, high-energy affairs and often involve inhospitable recovery environments like "the bottom of the ocean".

  If someone has better statistics close at hand I would love to review them and update this answer. Otherwise, it should be obvious that the above is an extremely rough off-the-cuff estimate, and should not be taken for any research or investigative purposes.
  In case it's not obvious - well I just said it.

Now, to the meat of your question:

Theoretically you could include a locator beacon in the CVR or FDR - incorporating a 406MHz ELT into the black box design is possible (you could even add a GPS to encode the device's location, though it would be of limited additional value with the inherent location accuracy of the 406MHz locator signal and satellite search system).

So why don't we do it?

As Lnafziger pointed out, airliners are already required to carry emergency locator transmitters - in any case where such a beacon would function including one in the CVR/FDR would be redundant with existing equipment in the aircraft.

Further practical problems arise when you consider the kind of abuse a "black box" is subject to -- These things need to survive a crash (up to 3400 Gs), crush forces, fire, and immersion in water under pressure.
Your typical distress beacon requires an antenna and a view of the sky, both of which would be in serious doubt after a crash:  The black box may be inside or under wreckage, required external antennas may have been torn off or burned away, and distress beacon signals are unlikely to be received if the recorder is under water (this is why current generation recorders have sonar "pingers" to assist in locating them).

  To easily illustrate the sort of problem radio devices have with "stuff" between them and the sky, try this experiment: Take your cell phone, wrap it in aluminum foil to simulate the skin of a plane, put it in a zip-lock bag, and take it to the bottom of a pool. I bet you won't be able to get a call on that phone.

Given the numerous failure modes (all of which are fairly high-probability in a real-world crash scenario), and the fact that we usually have a pretty good idea of where an aircraft is when a crash does happen, there isn't much to be gained by including additional locator technology in the CVR/FDR designs at this time - it just adds more components that would need periodic testing and recertification to ensure they are functioning properly and would activate appropriately in the event of a crash, while not appreciably improving our odds of finding the recorders.


Does jet engine exhaust velocity relative to itself remain constant despite speed changes?

Thrust is created by accelerating a working mass in opposite direction. Net thrust is the difference between the impulse of the air flowing towards the engine and the combined impulse of burnt fuel and the air exiting the engine (and propeller, if one is fitted), derived by time. That impulse is the product of mass and speed.

When flying faster, the entry impulse of a propeller or a fan quickly grows large relative to the exit impulse, so thrust goes down with the inverse of speed. On the other hand, the high exit speed of a turbojet results only in a small increase of the entry impulse relative to the exit impulse while speed increases.

GSP simulation of a turbojet engine for varying altitude and speed, taken from this answer.

But if that were all, even the thrust of a turbojet engine would drop when speed increases. But there is a second effect which helps to let thrust grow with speed. With the square of speed, to be precise. That is the ram effect which helps to precompress the air entering the engine. At subsonic speed, this just about compensates for the loss of thrust: At low speed, the growing entry impulse lets thrust drop a bit but at higher subsonic speed the ram effect becomes larger and raises thrust again, such that a constant thrust becomes a good approximation (see simulation result in the plot above). However, pressure and thermal limits inside the engine will quickly limit the additional compression in the compressor and the amount of heating that can be added in the combustor. What helps is to fly higher, where outside pressure and the intake temperature will be lower, which more than compensates for the pressure and temperature increase from the ram effect. But then thrust will drop in proportion to density.

So far for turbojets.

Turbofans are a different matter. Here, thrust drops with increasing speed similar, but less severe, as it does in propellers. The nozzles of both the cold outer and the hot core flow only allow the exit stream to leave at subsonic speed, so at cruise speed the fan nozzle is critical or close to this (meaning, exit speed is nearly the speed of sound). In both nozzles the speed can not go up indefinitely and when the core engine exit speed at maximum thrust and low flight speed is already close to the speed of sound, the rule that it stays nearly constant is a good approximation of reality.

Uninstalled thrust and SFC for a large turbofan, from "Airplane Aerodynamics and Performance" by Jan Roskam. Found here.
The steeper trend of the sea level thrust line above Mach 0.7 is caused by the pressure limit of the engine.


When do flights get cancelled due to fog?

Other answers have addressed the case of weather that's too bad for flights to operate, but another situation that can occur is congestion.

Take a look at the Average Arrival Rate chart for San Francisco International Airport (SFO) (more details on this in this blog post by an airline dispatcher). During visual conditions with favorable winds, they can operate in normal flow and accept 54+ arrivals/hour into two parallel runways, with departures using the perpendicular runways in between arrivals. But that only works when the cloud ceilings are above 3,000-3,500ft. That procedure relies on aircraft being able to visually see and avoid each other when flying in close proximity.

If there's fog (or low stratus clouds that don't touch the ground, as is typical), that can't happen; you can't send jets blindly into a cloud 750 feet apart from each other. If the clouds are high enough (per the chart, a minimum ceiling of 1,600ft and 4mi visibility), they can use a special SOIA procedure (Simultaneous Offset  Instrument  Approach)—essentially a guided, monitored way to direct jets into a cloud 2,000 feet apart—and accept around 36 arrivals/hour. And if the weather is too poor for that, the average arrival rate can drop to 25 arrivals/hour or below. The extra procedures and spacing required to safely manage traffic in the weather reduces the airport's capacity.

When this happens, there's nothing that stops any specific commercial flight from using the airport—they all have the necessary technology to land in most cloudy conditions—, but the airport's capacity is now too low to accommodate everyone. The FAA will impose a ground delay program to meter traffic into the airport until conditions improve (otherwise you end up with too many flights circling and diverting to other airports, causing many other problems), and the result is flight delays and cancellations.


Are lockwires still preferred over self-locking nuts and other ways of bolted joints` safety?

Difficulties and costs of maintaining the lock-wiring are obvious. My intuition says it only has to be used as a last resort when no other way is available. Nevertheless any aviation junk yard says my intuition is wrong. Lock-wires are everywhere in the old gas turbine engines. My question is:

  Do they now use other methods of bolted joints` safety in gas turbine engines (jam nuts and locking washers in particular)?

Well, maintaining safety lockwire isn't as hard as you think it is: A pair of safety wire pliers will last you a lifetime, and they do about 80% of the work for you (all the maintenance monkey needs to do is cut an appropriate length of wire, hook up the pliers, and twist, making sure the wire is positioned so as to always tighten the fastener).
It is easy to inspect, repairing is simple (just replace the damaged wire), and cost for a spool of wire is minimal compared to using a new self-locking nut every time something needs to be taken apart (safety wire earns its keep for temporary assembly too: You can wire the assembly when you're done, rather than wearing the lock material on a self-locking nut).

Other methods of securing fasteners are used on aircraft (in engines and elsewhere), including cotter pins and self-locking nuts with nylon inserts to prevent them from slipping. The cotter pin is easy to verify (like safety wire), and is widely used.  Self locking nuts on the other hand can slip without much visual indication (torque seal or similar products are often used to mark the nut and fastener to give a visual indication of slip).

A disadvantage to self locking nuts is that they must be replaced any time the fastener is removed (reused nuts will have a lower locking resistance, and may fail to hold), and using them introduces a potential for human error in maintenance operations that does not exist with safety wire, which must be cut to remove it. (There are even folks who try to reuse cotter pins, though normally they are cut to remove them and thus cannot be reused.)


In what portion a non-GPS approach, can a pilot legally fly with GPS as primary navigational resource?

An appropriately installed GPS may be used until crossing the final approach fix on a non-localizer approach, and until the segment requiring navigation via the localizer on a LOC, ILS, SDF, or LDA approach. It's generally approved and legal at any other time.

During the missed approach, a pilot may switch to GPS immediately, unless the missed approach requires navigating by using the localizer, in which case the ground-based navaid must continue to be used until the procedure no longer requires navigation by reference to the localizer.

The FAA covers this in AC 90-108:

  An otherwise
  suitable RNAV system cannot be used for the following:
  a.   NOTAMed   Procedures.
  Unless otherwise specified, navigation on procedures that are
  identified as not authorized (“NA”) without
  exception by a NOTAM. For example, an operator
  may not use a RNAV system to navigate on a procedure affected by an expired or unsatisfactory
  flight inspection, or a procedure that is based upon a
  recently decommissioned NAVAID.
  b.   Substitution on a Final Approach Segment.
  Substitution for the NAVAID (for
  example, a VOR or NDB) providing lateral
  guidance for the final approach segment.
  c. Lateral Navigation on LOC-Based Courses.
   Lateral navigation on LOC-based courses
  (including LOC back-course guidance)
  without reference to raw LOC data.


Can a certified mechanic ground my airplane?

The short answer is that a mechanic can't ground a plane. There are lots of discussions online about this, and the typical scenario seems to be that a mechanic "refuses to sign off an annual" or something similar. (There are other scenarios too, where the mechanic refuses to return the aircraft and/or logbooks to the owner because of a dispute over payment or work performed, but that's a legal issue, not an aviation one.)

AOPA has two useful articles (here, here) on this topic, written by Mike Busch (a well known A&P and author). He says:

Who can ground an aircraft?
FAR 91.7 forbids a PIC from flying an aircraft that is unairworthy,
although FAR 21.197 (Special Flight Permits) allows the FAA to grant
special dispensation to fly an unairworthy aircraft (usually for
repositioning purposes). There is no FAR that empowers a mechanic to
ground an aircraft. Mechanics are not the safety police.

When it comes to signing off on maintenance, there are two cases: required inspections (e.g. annuals), and general maintenance (e.g. an oil change). Required inspections are governed by 14 CFR 43.11.
43.11(a)(4) says:

[...] if the aircraft is found to be airworthy and approved for return
to service, the following or a similarly worded statement—“I certify
that this aircraft has been inspected in accordance with (insert type)
inspection and was determined to be in airworthy condition.”

43.11(a)(5) says:

[...] if the aircraft is not approved for return to service because of
needed maintenance, noncompliance with applicable specifications,
airworthiness directives, or other approved data, the following or a
similarly worded statement—“I certify that this aircraft has been
inspected in accordance with (insert type) inspection and a list of
discrepancies and unairworthy items dated (date) has been provided for
the aircraft owner or operator.”

In other words, even if the mechanic finds that the aircraft isn't airworthy, they're still required to make and sign a logbook entry to document that. The key point that Mike Busch makes is that what happens next is up to the owner, not the mechanic:

The owner must correct those discrepancies before the aircraft may
flown. He is free to have them corrected by any mechanic he chooses.
There’s no need for the inspecting mechanic to look at the aircraft
again. The next annual comes due in 12 calendar months.

The owner might ask the same mechanic who did the inspection to make repairs, or a different mechanic at the same airport. Or they might ask the FAA for a ferry permit to move the aircraft to another location for maintenance. Or they might just fly the aircraft anyway, knowing it isn't airworthy.
As for other maintenance that isn't a required inspection, 43.9(a)(4) says (emphasis mine):

If the work performed on the aircraft, airframe, aircraft engine,
propeller, appliance, or component part has been performed
satisfactorily, the signature, certificate number, and kind of
certificate held by the person approving the work. The signature
constitutes the approval for return to service only for the work
performed.

Here's Mike Busch's commentary on that:

Those two sentences bear careful reading. The first sentence makes it
explicitly clear that a mechanic’s signature on a 43.9 logbook entry
does not signify anything about the airworthiness of the aircraft. It
signifies only that the work the mechanic completed was performed
satisfactorily. [...]
The second sentence makes it clear that the mechanic’s signature does
not constitute an approval for return to service for the entire
aircraft (the way an annual inspection signoff does). It constitutes
approval only for the work the mechanic performed.

So coming back to your specific wiring scenario, if the mechanic performs a required inspection and determines that the change makes the aircraft unairworthy, they would document it as a discrepancy per 43.11. That means the aircraft is not airworthy, but how to make it airworthy is your decision, not the mechanic's decision.
Finally, if you're not sure how a mechanic would react to your wiring change you should probably find out. It's possible that the aircraft is already unairworthy, but that depends on a lot of details: type of aircraft, certified vs experimental, any applicable ADs etc.


What makes the left engine on a conventional twin-engine aircraft the critical one?

The "critical engine" (as it is called in this context) is based on the direction of propeller rotation and the "arm" length from the descending blade to the aircraft's center of gravity.

Here is a picture and explanation (source: Skybrary)


Can the lift equation be used for the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter?

The formula is correct, but you're measuring the wrong area.
A is the area of the wing, i.e., rotor blade, not the area of the rotor disc.
When π(0.6 m)² is replaced with the correct value, about 0.6 m * 0.05 m, then the final number for lift drops by about 40 times, as does the upward acceleration, to a more plausible 1.4 m/s².
(This error is also committed by the first google hit I got for lift equation rotor.)
The next step to improve accuracy would be to not ignore that the root of the blade moves much more slowly than the tip, and conversely that (for Ingenuity at least) the root has greater chord and greater angle of attack.  But the math for that is much more involved.


There's always a risk with LAHSO and pilots can always say "unable"; student pilots are not even permitted to accept a LAHSO clearance. You can always go around if you deem it necessary; you're the pilot in control and empowered to make all decisions affecting the safety of your flight, and the fact that you're landing on a LAHSO clearance is just a factor you need to take into account. Making the decision to go around is, in my estimation, much safer than landing and potentially crossing the hold short line (due to the reaction time others have to deal with the situation).

While there is that risk, the tower is watching and at any sign of trouble they will call other landing aircraft off. The two runways aren't being landed on at the same moment such that normal operations would cause them to collide at the intersection if one didn't hold short.

According to this interesting article on the subject, there were 20 LAHSO incidents between 1994 and 1999.


Sort of amusing F-16s were used here, instead of older vintage aircraft.  One must realize those little turns would involve high Gs that may incapacitate the pilots.  Also, any "yo-yo" would bleed off a lot of energy and make B an easy target for wingman of A.

One "oldie but goodie" would be for A and its wingman (person) to weave and have B turn right into the wingman's line.  This is the value of teamwork.

However, these days, more realisticly, you need to dodge the opponents missile, which can be very tough.  Stealth and shoot now rule.  But old methods should still be studied.

In the second scenario, one on one, aircraft A would also try to "yo-yo", and they wind up in "a rolling scissors".  The aircraft with more power to weight and better turning rate prevails.  For identical aircraft, it would be pilot skill.  But for modern aircraft with missiles and partners, this type of turning engagement would be very rare.


Are there any fly-by-wire airliners with negative or near-neutral pitch stability?

No.

Modern FBW airliners use less static stability than what the early jets were used to, but stability is still positive. The negative camber at the root airfoil of sweptback horizontal tails might indicate predominantly negative tail loads, but is also used to keep the isobars on the swept surface parallel. Also, the bent-up leading edge delays separation with full wing flaps when the tail has to produce lots of downforce:

A380 tail (picture source)

Boeing 787 tail (picture source)

At zero static stability the lengthwise position of the center of gravity coincides with the neutral point such that the lift per area on all horizontal surfaces is roughly the same (I neglect camber effects for the moment which are small in cruise configuration).

The horizontal tails even of the most recent designs still have negative camber and no twist which indicates that their design lift coefficient is around zero or even slightly negative. This has mostly to do with the tail loads in landing configuration but also shows that at transsonic speed they fly at a lower lift coefficient than the wing. Such an airfoil camber would make operation at transsonic speed and the lift coefficient of the wing rather inefficient.

A neutral stability design would make the FBW system even more flight critical than it is already and would make the "direct law" mode of the Airbus FBW system rather dangerous. Certification would be much harder - after all, FAR $25.173 still applies:

  (a) A pull must be required to obtain and maintain speeds below the specified trim speed, and a push must be required to obtain and maintain speeds above the specified trim speed.

The "maintain" part of this rule can best be achieved with positive static stability.

Also, reducing static stability beyond a point where stability is still slightly positive does not improve efficiency anymore. Note that the tail surface aspect ratio is smaller than that of the wing. If both surfaces would fly at the same lift coefficient, the induced drag from the tail would be relatively higher (in relation to lift) than that of the wing, even without downwash effects. This means that the lift at the tail comes at a higher price and it is more efficient to fly the wing at a higher lift coefficient than the tail.

EDIT:

Supersonic aircraft benefit from negative static stability because this will cause less trim drag in supersonic flight. No such advantage exists for airliners because they are not made for sustained supersonic operation.

Also, positive static stability is possible with lift on the tail. In that respect the question repeats an old meme. It is not the sign of the lift on the tail surface which determines the boundary between positive and negative stability, but the relative lift per area. It must be less on the tail than on the wing for stability. How else would a stable canard airplane be able to produce lift on its main wing?


Conducting a Precision Approach on a Non-Precision Runway - What are my limitations?

Your limitations are exactly the same regardless of runway -- you cannot descend below the published DH without the published flight visibility minimum and the visual references required by 91.175.

What the limited runway markings and lights change is the number of visual cues you have to be able to descend below MDA and land, which affects the likelihood of a successful approach in minimum weather.  Whether this is a disadvantage or not depends on the actual weather and your preparation.  If you know what lighting and markings are available (and you should), then you know what to look for.  If you are looking for lights that don't exist, you won't find them and worst case you may mis-identify other lights.

The only other disadvantages I can think of relate to ground movement and ILS critical area protection.  If there are no centerline lights on the runway there probably aren't lighted runway turnoff lead lines either and extra care needs to be taken when taxiing.  If the runway is located at an non-towered field and the ILS critical area has a hold short line on the taxi way, it may not be protected properly.  This is mitigated, however, by taxiway placement which probably avoids the critical area at non-towered fields (not universally true though).


Why do we have to perform a full ADIRS alignment between latitudes of 2 degrees North and South on the A320 family?

SOP is modified to introduce a new condition to perform a complete IRS alignment during cockpit preparation. When departure airport is located between latitudes 2° north and 2° south, a full alignment must be done. This is to avoid excessive drift of Honeywell ADIRU Block III during the subsequent flight.


There are a few types of altimeters but they all generally do the same thing and can be calibrated to anything if need be. Where they measure from and what they consider 0 are really 2 different questions.

A pressure altimeter reads from the pito-static port (many planes have more than one of these for redundancy) and they are generally located forward on the air frame and often on the side somewhere.

((737 static port) source)

Radar Altimeters will most likely mount to the bottom of the aircraft (since that is the way the radio beam needs to go).

(source)

According to this discussion radar altimeters are on the belly and 0ft is calibrated to mains on the ground, after that altitudes will be read out in negative values.

And from here

  The callouts (50, 40,30,20,10 feet, etc) is the function of two radio
  altimeters which provide the height of the main landing gear above the
  runway.


How long should I wait after I've gotten off my OCD medication to consult an aviation medical examiner?

Timing probably matters very little as far as talking to the AME. He'll need to consider not just the medication you aren't on any longer (and he can tell you what timeframe has been "long enough" there), but also the nature of your condition without the medication. The time needed to evaluate how you're doing without the medication is probably longer than the timeframe required to "have the medicine out of your system before you go fly."

In cases like cold medicine, the latter is some multiple of the dose interval, and it's pretty clear that the initial condition (the cold) is gone & won't cause you any further problems. I am not an AME, but my expectation would be that OCD is enough different that the timeframe will be much longer.

It will take an AME to tell you what the path from where you are to where you want to be (having your medical issued) looks like and how long it will take.  There are too many variables in these sorts of things for much of a "one size fits all" answer.

As far as which AME, I'd suggest calling a few in your area & asking if they have experience with patients with OCD, and if not, whom they'd recommend.  It may take a bit of research, but it should be possible to find one who had done this before.  Ideally, "local" is better than far distant, although if may be possible for the right AME, even if he's some distance away, to work with your local doctor to gather what's needed so he can send it to the FAA & get approval, so you might only need 1 in-person visit with him.  I'd definitely want somebody familiar with more than the routine "check eyes & BP and sign the paperwork" procedures!


How can I get historic flight data by N-number?

Some websites offer historic flight records, but they are not free. And they don't go back for decades and are not complete.

If you really must, try the FAA Registry, see if the owner is listed, and get in touch if their contact information is listed.

The FAA only keeps broad records, as this answer explains.

Don't get me wrong, but it's like asking where a car has been to for the past 20 years. But I could be mistaken.


Does a safety wire prevent a fuel filter to detach during flight?

Safety wire is almost never "efficient", but efficiency is not the goal: Safety is.
You want to be certain that once the fuel strainer has been secured it's not going to fall off in flight (which will result in the engine being starved of fuel).

On many light aircraft that's accomplished by wrapping safety wire on the fuel strainer to ensure it can't come loose in flight:

A skilled mechanic who works with safety wire every day can safety a fuel strainer in about a minute - probably even faster. It's pretty impressive to watch.

A bungling incompetent like me who does it maybe once a year takes about 5 minutes, often punctuated with "colorful metaphors" and comments about the questionable parentage of the engineer responsible for the fuel strainer.

Either way, in the grand scheme of things that's not a lot of time spent on securing a flight-critical component.

Because there are far more bungling incompetents than skilled mechanics (and because even good mechanics are frequently not fond of safety wire) there are other fuel strainer designs which don't use safety wire.
The one I linked to uses a bayonet lock for the bowl, and a cotter pin to keep it from coming loose in flight. Anyone can bend a cotter pin in a couple of seconds, and as effective as the safety wire technique, if not moreso.


How does the Piper Archer III electrical system work?

I think you misunderstand how the alternator, battery, and electrical system are connected. An alternator puts out DC voltage into the electrical bus. It is used to provide electrical power to aircraft systems, as well as to recharge the battery from cranking and pre-start light and radio usage.

You can see this in the wiring diagram in the POH:

You can see the alternator about 2/3 of the way up the diagram, just to the left of center. The 'B' lead coming out of it goes directly into the ammeter and to the DC power bus (the big bar along the top).

The path back to the battery is a little more complicated, but there where it says "Battery Feeder", you can see it goes through a 70A fuse, down to where it connects to the battery contactor. So when the alternator switch is on and the battery switch is on (closing the battery contactor), the alternator can charge the battery. [In small Cessnas this is a split master switch, but I'm not sure what it looks like in an Archer.]

To answer your question specifically about what the ammeter shows, this will give you the amount of current the alternator is providing in amps. After startup you should see slightly more than usual as the battery recharges. You will probably see the number go up while you are transmitting on the radio. If you see this number get really large for no reason, there may be a fault in the electrical system somewhere. If you see this number go to ZERO, it's possible that the alternator has stopped working completely and your lights and radios are now running on battery for a limited amount of time!

I hope that is helpful. Note that nothing here should suggest a specific course of action -- this is just general electrical system information. Consult the emergency procedures or an experienced flight instructor for specific information about your airplane.


Were stub wings on early flying boats designed or able to exploit ground-effect lift?

In the early 1920s ground effect was not as well studied as today, so it was not considered during development. These stub wings, mostly called sponsons, were meant for roll stabilization on the water, so they were aerodynamically shaped buoyancy aides. Dornier had studied the optimum hull shape in the early 1920s with water tunnel tests, and the result was the flat-bottomed Dornier hull with sponsons.

The sponsons were mounted with significant incidence, not only to provide some more lift in flight, but mainly to reduce spray when sailing through choppy water at high speed.

From a 1925 Russian memorandum on hydroaviation, about the Dornier Wal, a 1922 flying boat design using sponsons:

  The distinctive feature of this aircraft was two protrusions on each
  side of the hull (so-called "gills") instead of under-wing floats
  providing lateral stability. Thanks to its flat bottom, the airplane
  could if necessary take off from snow or ice.

Other manufacturers of that time used outriggers, called under-wing floats in the citation above. One example is the Avro 510, which also used an extra float below the tail for stabilization on the water:

Avro 510 (picture source)

Those and especially their bracing struts and wires produced much more drag than sponsons. Later designs sported retractable outriggers which proved to be the least draggy solution.

Dornier 26 with retractable outriggers at mid-span (picture source)

Ground effect grows with a diminishing ratio of both wing chord over height and wing span over height. The first effect is much more pronounced for sponsons in the most drag-intensive phase of take-off from water, namely when the flying boat changes from buoyancy to planing lift, the so-called hump. The second part of ground effect, however, means that the wings also contribute some drag relief; something that works for all flying boat designs. Yes, there is a tiny and unintended advantage from the ground effect of sponsons, but given that water is 800 times more dense than air and slow planing will involve the full width of the fuselage, any aerodynamic help from the sponsons can be neglected.


How can take-off slots suddenly become available even when airspace is congested?

It's a very credible explanation.

Slots to allocate scarce ATC and airport resources are created based on a known rate at which the airport/airspace can handle traffic, and they are apportioned out based on things like when the flightplans are filed, allowing for time enroute and expected arrival times.  (This is a little general -- trying to give a big picture without getting mired in too many specifics of EDCT's, Ground Delay Programs, and so forth -- some of those details can be found in answers to this question.)  When total demand is below capacity, it's common to be told to "contact Clearance Delivery 5 minutes prior to Push for your wheels up time to XYZ," and then on calling Clearance, you're either given a wheels-up time in about 15-20 minutes (i.e. push on time, taxi out, and take off with no delays) or even "released with no restrictions."

However, when demand is greater than capacity (most common when a bottle-neck is caused by something like bad weather at the destination reducing the allowable arrival rate, although also caused when a runway or an approach is unusable for some length of time), then things start to slow down, and you may be given a wheels up time farther off in the future.

Better to sit at the gate not burning gas than burning gas at idle out on a taxiway, or burning a LOT of gas holding in the air, but not most flyers' idea of a good time.

When things are HIGHLY saturated, as it sounds like the OP's scenario, you can't get your slot time issued until you are actually ready to go, but you (or your dispatcher) may have a sense for what sort of delay is likely.  In these cases, you often can see where some aircraft have been given a significant delay, and anticipate something similar -- but you don't actually know what you'll get until you call.

Sounds like the crew for the OP's flight anticipated that they MIGHT be pretty far back in line, and explained things accordingly, but when they actually called then either conditions had improved, OR a particular slot was available (perhaps another flight had cancelled or been delayed) and they got it.  That's not all that uncommon -- you call for your time, hoping for the best & prepared for the worst, and sometimes you get the "wheels-up" time 90 minutes out, and sometimes you get "can you be wheels up in 12 minutes?" and if the answer's "yes" then there's a quick high-five in the cockpit and "tell 'em to shut the door, we're going!"

Due to the lead times involved, when a slot opens up like this, ATC typically does NOT call every flight "in the queue" to shift everybody forward by 5 minutes; that slot either gets used by somebody, or it's just unfilled.  But when we've told our passengers "you can get off the airplane, be back by X so we can leave," making adjustments to that X time isn't practical, so for us that time is pretty well set.  Somebody else who IS boarded up & ready may get that fallout slot ahead of us, and when he does, good for him.


What are the consequences of disobeying cabin crew during emergency?

There are laws which mean you must comply with crew orders at any time whilst on an aircraft. This is especially important in an emergency. In the Singapore example, imagine if a passenger had, without thinking (as tends to happen in emergencies), opened up a door on the side that was on fire. Fire could have entered the cabin, ensuring fatalities.

However, no prosecutor is going to pursue charges against someone for disobeying directions in an emergency, unless their actions clearly led to serious harm. Every evacuation, so many people stop and try to get their carry-on items, when they are clearly told not to. Even though this increases the chances of other people dying, nobody has been prosecuted for that (to the best of my knowledge).


Black boxes: great for crashes on land. How about additional "floaties" for water crashes (low-tech, light, cheap)

The first thing that comes to mind to me is that they'd have to be firmly attached enough to not come off in flight, yet somehow detach easily when in the water. They'd also create additional drag, which - especially to commercial air carriers - translates to money lost (additional fuel).

There would also need to be some connection (wired or wireless) to continuously transmit data to them (I'm assuming that you're proposing several of them).

Finally, the whole point of the FDR's housing is that it's rigid enough to withstand explosions and impact, yet the floatation proposal requires that there be some sort of expanding material that'd inflate upon contact (or presumably submersion - consider weather/rain) with water.

General aviation aircraft use ELTs (Emergency Locator Transmitters), which are designed just to notify of the location of a crash incident. They are required in the U.S. for general aviation and commercial aircraft, but unfortunately not for scheduled flights by an air carriers.

I get the impression that the trend is probably towards having more data transmitted real-time during the flight (think Air France stall/crash) of systems monitoring data and location such that location and recovery of more data-intensive logs (voice recorder) would be more efficient.


Does full nose up trim provide approximately the elevator pressure for Vg?

This technique is commonly called the "minimum trim glide" - basically you smoothly trim the aircraft to full nose-up after the engine quits (at a rate which won't cause it to "balloon"), or alternatively you establish best glide speed manually and then trim to full nose-up to relive the pressure on the yoke so you can concentrate on other things.

I'm not sure if this is a "certification requirement" (I can't find anything about it in Part 23's discussion of trim requirements, the old CAR 3 regulations, or in AC 23-8C.

Empirically I can tell you that it's true for the loading configurations I've tried it in, on the Piper PA-28 and Cessna 172 aircraft I've flown. I have been lead to believe it is generally true for single-engine piston light aircraft: With no engine thrust full nose-up trim will produce something close to best glide speed. Before relying on it in any particular type of aircraft however I would perform a test at altitude by bringing the power to idle and verifying that you get something reasonably close to best glide speed.

Note that there is a potential pitfall of the minimum trim glide when practicing engine out maneuvers: Upon recovery it is possible to cause a trim stall. As power and airspeed increases in the recovery elevator/trim authority is also increased, and full nose-up trim is generally adequate to cause the aircraft to stall in this situation, therefore special care must be taken to prevent the aircraft from pitching up to an attitude which would cause a stall.


How to plot the pressure distribution over an airfoil?

I have found only the description of this pattern with experimental graphs.

That's because that is the best way to have detailed and precise data: you either simulate (e.g., with Nastran-Patran or XFoil, as cited by Peter Kämpf in his answer) or build a [scale] model and use a wind tunnel. If you use a scale model, depending on the focus of the experiment, you will have to be careful (while scaling back up) not to damage your data: for this you have adymensional quantities to look after, such as the Reynolds number.

  Could anyone please tell me the mathematical formula required to plot the distribution?

There is not one formula to do that, but rather a method that given the airfoil shape (and the angle of attack) will estimate the pressure distribution. This method was extensively used in the days before computers and FEM tools existed (for what I know SR71 is a notable example where this method has been used in the early phase of the wings design), but, for what I know, nowadays is seldom used.

The method is based on Conformal Mapping, in particular the Joukowsky transform or the Kármán–Trefftz for more detailed and general cases (see Sec. 4.2 of this pdf for a more in-depth explanation). This is a transformation in the complex plane that, from the airfoil profile that you want to analyse, will map it onto a circle.

You want to do this because the ideal flow around a circle is well known:

At this point you have to know that around an airfoil the air will have a certain amount of circulation and that the total flow around it is the sum of the ideal unviscous flow plus the flow induced by the circulation:

 Image from MIT

For this reason, you want to compute the ideal flow around a cilinder that has a rotation speed equivalent to the circulation around your airfoil[*]:

and it turns out that we have some formulas for that (image above taken from this page).

[*]: note that you will have different circulations for different angles of attack.

Now, why did we do all this? Because once we have the flow around the rotating cilinder and
we have the mapping from the airfoil to the cylinder, we "only" have to invert the mapping:

and we immediately have our flow around the airfoil.

And once we have the airflow, finding the pressure distribution is quite straightforward, thanks to Bernoulli (you have the velocity distribution and you can assume that the transit of the air around the wing is fast enough to be adiabatic)


Under what circumstances can a flight attendant unbuckle and get up during landing?

An FA is a member of the crew and can get up or sit down as they wish during any phase of the flight. As to what they can do, they can have the pax arrested the moment the aircraft door opens. If that is not a good reason to obey instructions, I don't know what is! If the pax becomes a threat to the safety of the flight, yes, they can certainly get physical to put an end to the situation and secure the cabin.


Question about the difficulty of a couple of airplane maneuvers

A runway at a decent size commercial airport is ~200' wide and 10,000` long, which is about 2 million square feet or 45 acres, most of this is for roll out can pilots generally have no issue touching down in the first 1000 feet which covers an area just under 4.6 acres.
So its safe to say that a pilot can maneuver a plane from 6800 feet down to a landmass of 34 acres.
A turn of that as described could be achieved with a ~30 degree bank, that decent rate is fast but not unachievable.
Aggressive decent rates like this would likely not be possible in a 757 but low and fast is not out of the question for some planes

Any airline pilot (fresh in or about to retire) should be able to pull off the first two maneuvers with out an issue . A decent CFI would likely be able to coach someone threw these maneuvers if they were just starting out. As for the last maneuver, your gonna need a G Suit....


What is your responsibility when a distraught pilot is on frequency?

On frequency, if control is responding to the distressed aircraft you should stay quiet and let them work the problem. This would not be a great time to ask for flight following or traffic advisories and you should expect neither. You should be listening for instructions broadcast to all aircraft in the area and possibly an announcement to change frequencies.

A controller may try and hand some aircraft off if possible to ease their load.

Depending on your situation, and if possible, it may be warranted for you to fly out of the area, or avoid it if you are inbound. In some cases ATC will work to get the aircraft to stay in an altitude block if you can hear this assignment, you should stay clear of that block.

It's not really your responsibility to play chase plane but reporting things on frequency may be warranted if the channel is free, you are not stepping on a controllers attempt to contact anyone, and the information is pertinent to the situation. Perhaps you saw the aircraft crash site from the air; if you can provide a definitive location it may warrant reporting. Saying something like, "Hey I see that guy" is not really helpful especially considering today's radar (although coverage is far from perfect) and soon to be ADS-B systems.

It is unequivocally NOT your place to attempt to contact or otherwise interact with the distressed aircraft. This will only increase confusion and create a situation where you are potentially contradicting what ATC is saying. To address your specific situation, controllers on the ground have the ability to get the required people on the line to work the problem. If someone with suicidal intentions is on the frequency controllers will respond (and in this case did respond) in a proper manner. It is not your place to attempt to talk to them as you are likely unqualified to do so and will likely worsen matters.

As a slight caveat to the above statement, there is one instance in which you as a pilot should get involved. In some areas of the country (or the world for that matter) where facilities are far apart and radio coverage at low altitudes is limited you may be in a situation where you can relay important information to a station that is with in your range but out of range of the aircraft in distress. In this case it is important to know this is the case and that you are not simply in range of an aircraft but out of range of the facility they are communicating with. If the distressed aircraft is making repeated, uniform calls with no clear response you may consider contacting approach and asking if they are aware of the situation. This is a very specific case and should be handled as a one-off on a case-by-case basis.


When to start descent entering a racetrack under NORDO?

You can descend from 4300' to 2600' as soon as you pass ZUNAD, as long as you remain in the protected airspace of the hold at ZUNAD.

It is the same situation if you were "Cleared for an approach" in a non-radar environment.


Don't use the autopilot, use the trim, and look outside!  Fixating on the instruments will not make you better.  Know the sight picture out the windshield and what wing looks like in relation to the horizon.  Set 25' altitude brackets and 2° heading brackets and hold yourself to them.  It'll seem impossible but you'll get better.  Set those brackets with the intent to hold them by looking outside, not chasing needles in the cockpit.

Fly using the actual horizon as your reference, which is safer anyway, and make minor adjustments based on a periodic instrument scan that should become less and less frequent as you get better (think 10-15sec between scans to start).  Hold heading based on distant objects, not the compass or DG.

Finally, use the trim.  If it takes more than two fingers to adjust pitch, you are not trimmed.  If you fly a plane with a trim wheel between the seats get used to resting your hand on it.  Every time you change the power setting, retrim.  In an updraft?  Retrim.  Down draft?  Retrim. It'll become second nature in no time.


My first guess (but it is a guess) is an AirCo/de Haviland DH.4.

Reference: https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=448


Why does cabin air have to be dehumidified?

A lot of consideration is placed on the airframe (which has to hold for 20+ years) rather than the passengers.

One of the primary reasons is to slow corrosion of the  aluminium airframe. This is also why the Boeing 787 is a lot more humid - corrosion is no longer an issue in a composite fuselage (or a lot less at least).

Boeing and the Economist sum it up nicely I think:

  the greatest issue lies with the cold fuselage skin interacting with
  moist air, which will condensate and speed up the rate of corrosion.

  But condensation in the gap between cabin and hull can be lethal.
  This gap contains much of an aircraft's wiring, and water can damage
  that wiring's insulation. Such a problem is thought to have
  contributed to the loss of a Swissair DC-11 off the Atlantic coast of
  America a few years ago. Too much condensation causes other
  difficulties, as well. There have been cases when ice has built up
  inside the tailplanes of aircraft, causing their rudders to freeze and
  thus preventing their pilots from steering them.

  An aircraft such as a Boeing 747-400 can accumulate as much as 700kg of condensation before it reaches equilibrium. Even though
  that is only about 0.17% of the 400 tonnes such an aircraft weighs
  fully laden, it is enough to cause problems for the pilot when he
  tries to trim the balance of the aircraft. And 700kg is about the
  weight of nine men. So the aircraft is carrying the equivalent of at
  least nine non-fare-paying passengers, in an industry where every
  extra kilogram affects fuel consumption and profit margins.


What are these holes in the engine inlet?

These are "acoustic liners"; they allow the sound waves to get "trapped" in the holes and make the engine quieter. Sometimes chunks tear loose and they're repaired with what amounts to Bondo.


What does "transition of glideslope intercept waypoint" mean in the 737 FCOM?

As a generic (non-737 specific) answer, it means that when the Flight Director is armed to capture an ILS glideslope, the VNAV flight director mode, being a vertical path based on baro altitude, is cancelled once the aircraft passes through a waypoint that the RNAV system calculates to be the geographical intercept point of the ILS glideslope beam (the intercept waypoint) because the Flight Director is expected to capture and track the ILS glideslope and RNAV/VNAV guidance is no longer required.


Is there any regulation on how often a private aircraft should be washed?

Yes
...sort of.
There is a general requirement to clean privately operated aircraft as part of the annual inspection. There is no requirement to actually accomplish an annual inspection for a non-flying aircraft stored in a hanger. However, for an aircraft to be airworthy, the mechanic performing the annual inspection shall accomplish the required cleaning as part of the inspection. See 14 CFR 43, Appendix D:

(a) Each person performing an annual or 100-hour inspection shall, before that inspection, remove or open all necessary inspection plates, access doors, fairing, and cowling. He shall thoroughly clean the aircraft and aircraft engine.

Note that the annual inspection is generally the only inspection required of many privately operated aircraft. For aircraft operated commercially for flight instruction or carrying passengers for hire, the 100 hr inspection is also required, which might increase the required cleaning interval.
This regulation applies to all aircraft subject to FAA regulation. There are otherwise no special FAA regulations regarding aircraft washing or cleaning that are applicable to the Great Lakes area.

There may also be manufacturer recommended wash intervals. However, these are not regulations.
Operating certain types of aircraft under an approved maintenance program, the manufacturer could conceivably mandate a wash schedule which would then become mandatory in order to maintain continued airworthiness under that approved maintenance program. Such a mandate could conceivably apply to a specific geographic area based on climate issues. However, in the context of private aircraft, the requirement for such maintenance programs would only apply to certain large, turbojet, or multi-engine turbine aircraft. For this reason, neither of the types originally tagged in your question (Cessna 172 and 208) would be subject to a requirement for an approved maintenance program, though the Citation series originally mentioned in your title would be.
Moreover, if a manufacturer instituted such a change to their maintenance programs, such a change would generally only affect newly approved maintenance programs. Existing maintenance program approvals are "frozen" meaning new manufacturer maintenance program recommendations are recommendations only.

There may be local ordinances that limit water usage or otherwise regulate activities involved in aircraft washing.
Questions regarding EPA regulation are beyond the scope of this site.


What is the weight difference between 100 hp and 150 hp Continental engine?

Which variants are you specifically talking about?

The Continental O-200-A (100hp) weighs 170.18 lb (77.19 kg) dry, without accessories.

I can't find a 150hp Continental, so here is the closest variant I could find:

Continental O-300 (145hp) weighs 268 lbs (121.5 kg) dry, without starter or generator
The O-300 is also listed as a C-145 and as a C-175
E165-2 165 hp dry weight 351 lb (159 kg) - Variant of the O-470
E165-3 165 hp  dry weight 352 lb (160 kg) - Varian of the O-470

I hope that's what you were looking for.


What is the technical name of the electric window dimming system?

From a Boeing article:

  Electro-chromatic dimmable windows

It's generically described in the article as being an electronically controlled and can dim or lighten the cabin at the push of a button. They claim 70k cycles or 20 years of service

Gizmodo provides a succinct description of it's operation

  The dimming effect is the result of an electrified gel sandwiched between two thin pieces of glass. As the electric current increases, the gel darkens and as it drops, the gel lightens.

The maker appears to be Gentex and they have a variety of electric dimming window patents but it's not clear which one is used in the 787


Does the FAA dictate that bridges are closed for the Thunder Over Louisville airshow event?

The FAA has no authority over roads, bridges or any other public roads. Usually, it's the the event organizer who's responsible for requesting and coordinating road closures; think of triathlons, parades etc. And even without the FAA, there are very good reasons for the local police to close the bridges: rubbernecking and accidents caused by distracted drivers; keeping people safe when fireworks are set off from the bridges and so on.

But, at least in theory the FAA could indirectly require road closures as part of an airshow waiver.

Most airshows require a waiver, i.e. permission from the FAA to 'ignore' certain regulations. The list of regulations that can be waived is in 14 CFR 91.905 and you can immediately see why some of them would be waived for an airshow. These ones in particular seem very relevant:

  91.111   Operating near other aircraft.
  91.117   Aircraft speed.
  91.119   Minimum safe altitudes: General.
  91.303   Aerobatic flights.

The full instructions for issuing a waiver are long and detailed but there are lots of requirements to ensure minimum distance between aircraft and spectators, and to ensure that the energy vectors of aerobatic maneuvers are not directed towards crowds.

I haven't been to Thunder yet so I don't know to what extent the aircraft actually maneuver vs. flying in stable formation down the river. But, it's at least very plausible that the FAA has issued an airshow waiver requiring a minimum distance from spectators that can only be guaranteed if some of the bridges are closed. And, if the park area around River Road is the main spectator area, then any aerobatic maneuvers would have to direct their energy vectors along the river, i.e. towards the bridges. That could require the airshow organizers to request that the bridges be closed.

Unfortunately I couldn't find out if airshow waivers are public or not (a quick search on faa.gov didn't find any) so I don't know if it's possible to check which FAA regulations have been waived for Thunder, or what conditions they placed on the organizers.


How do fuel tanks prevent free surface effect?

It's not from banking that makes fuel slosh around when the airplane makes normal coordinated turns, any more than your drink sloshes over the side of your glass, or falls off the tray during a turn.  The fuel doesn't know there's a turn going on.
It's from yawing motions that occur, to the extent that the yaw damper system allows it (very small yaw excursions), or more severely, in the initial moments following an engine failure where big yawing motions occur if the pilot is slow in correcting the asymmetric thrust, and perhaps during landing where yawing actions are done to align with the runway.
In any case, the fuel tanks are just sealed off areas of the wing box structure, with bulkheads formed by the ribs.  The bulkheads will have holes to allow fuel to migrate, so they act like baffles.  In some bulkheads, there may be little one-way flapper valves along the bottom to only allow the fuel to migrate inboard, so once an outer zone of the tank is empty, fuel can't slosh back into it.
At the inboard end of the typical wing tank is a "collector tank" that the engines actually draw from, which is continuously filled to overflowing (the overflow running back into the main tank or sometimes just overflowing an opening around the top within the main tank).  The filling of the collector tank is done by scavenge pumps installed at the tank extremities.


Can I work on my own airplane without formal mechanic's training?

FAR Part 43 contains the information of what you can and cannot do to an aircraft and what requirements you must have.

If you are a certificated Private Pilot (as in not a sport pilot), there are quite a few things you can do to an aircraft you own, that is not used for commercial purposes. Like:

Replace wheel bearings
Remove/repair/reinstall wheels
Replace safety wiring and cotter keys
Service landing gear struts by adding oil/air
Lubrication not requiring disassembly of non-structural items like cover plates, cowlings, and fairings
Simple fabric patches not requiring rib stitching or removing structural parts or control surfaces
Replenishing hydraulic fluid
Refinishing decorative coating of fuselage and other parts
Repairing upholstery without disassembly
Simple repairs to fairings, etc
Replacing side windows
Replacing safety belts
Replacing seats or seat parts with approved replacements
Troubleshooting and repairing broken circuits in landing light wing circuits
Replacing bulbs, reflectors, and lenses of position and landing lights
Replacing wheels and skis where no weight and balance computation is required
Replacing cowling not requiring removing the propeller or disconnecting flight controls
Replacing or cleaning spark plugs and setting gap clearance
Replacing any hose connection except hydraulic connections
Replacing prefabricated fuel lines
Cleaning or replacing fuel and oil strainers or filter elements
Replacing and servicing batteries

And others Source

However, note that it has to be your airplane, and it can't be used commercially (which I think includes offering it for rent). There is very little you can do in the way of avionics (read #31 and #32 in the reference I gave).

The fun thing to note is that although a PPL is required, the PPL training does not give any special attention to any of these items, and therefore really somebody off the street is technically just as qualified as a private pilot, but the private pilot is the only one authorized to do the work (provided they own the plane). When I got my PPL, nobody walked me through replacing cotter pins or anti-back-out devices...

Edit
These rules though may be different when you get into experimental category aircraft but I can't source it now and will do more research and edit when I can clarify.


Is there any Class G airspace south of Portage Bay in Seattle?

It appears that Seattle Pacific University is located 14NM north of the SEA VOR on the 350° radial.  This puts the university under class B airspace.

Over the university, class G airspace starts at the surface and extends upwards to 700 FT AGL, class E airspace extends from 700 FT AGL up to 3,000 FT MSL and class B airspace extends from 3,000 FT MSL to 10,000 FT MSL.

From a regulatory standpoint the FAA has a set of guidelines that are found in 14 CFR Part 107.

There are rules stating you cannot fly an UAS over persons who aren't part of the flight or with the traffic area of airports.  You also cannot operate in areas where class B, C, D or E extends to the ground but that appears not to be the case here.


How long can a commercial airliner fly at 90deg roll?

What you're talking about is called "knife edge" flight, where all of the lift is coming from the sideways fuselage, making it a lifting body aircraft with big fins (the wings) sticking up and down that aren't doing anything (rolling sideways during a ballistic arc doesn't count).   The rudder is doing the job of the elevator, and the elevator is doing the job of the rudder.

To do this is requires a fairly deep fuselage profile, preferably reasonably flat sided so it makes a decent lifting body, with a really powerful rudder to effectively function as the elevator for this lifting body, and it's helpful to have a high power propeller engine on the nose helping with the lift generation.

Just about the only airplanes that meet those characteristics are purpose built aerobatic machines that can sustain knife edge flight indefinitely or some military jets.  Certainly no airliner could ever do that.


Why is the sound quality of onboard public address so bad?

For the regulatory portion of this question.

  14 CFR 121.318

  No person may operate an airplane with a seating capacity of more than 19 passengers unless it is equipped with a public address system which—

  (a) Is capable of operation independent of the crewmember interphone system required by§ 121.319, except for handsets, headsets, microphones, selector switches, and signaling devices;

  (b) Is approved in accordance with§ 21.305 of this chapter;

  (c) Is accessible for immediate use from each of two flight crewmember stations in the pilot compartment;

  (d) For each required floor-level passenger emergency exit which has an adjacent flight attendant seat, has a microphone which is readily accessible to the seated flight attendant, except that one microphone may serve more than one exit, provided the proximity of the exits allows unassisted verbal communication between seated flight attendants;

  (e) Is capable of operation within 10 seconds by a flight attendant at each of those stations in the passenger compartment from which its use is accessible;

  (f) Is audible at all passenger seats, lavatories, and flight attendant seats and work stations; and

  (g) For transport category airplanes manufactured on or after November 27, 1990, meets the requirements of§ 25.1423 of this chapter.

  [Doc. No. 24995, 54 FR 43926, Oct. 27, 1989]

  14 CFR 25.1423

  A public address system required by this chapter must—

  (a) Be powerable when the aircraft is in flight or stopped on the ground, after the shutdown or failure of all engines and auxiliary power units, or the disconnection or failure of all power sources dependent on their continued operation, for—

  (1) A time duration of at least 10 minutes, including an aggregate time duration of at least 5 minutes of announcements made by flight and cabin crewmembers, considering all other loads which may remain powered by the same source when all other power sources are inoperative; and

  (2) An additional time duration in its standby state appropriate or required for any other loads that are powered by the same source and that are essential to safety of flight or required during emergency conditions.

  (b) Be capable of operation within 3 seconds from the time a microphone is removed from its stowage.

  (c) Be intelligible at all passenger seats, lavatories, and flight attendant seats and work stations.

  (d) Be designed so that no unused, unstowed microphone will render the system inoperative.

  (e) Be capable of functioning independently of any required crewmember interphone system.

  (f) Be accessible for immediate use from each of two flight crewmember stations in the pilot compartment.

  (g) For each required floor-level passenger emergency exit which has an adjacent flight attendant seat, have a microphone which is readily accessible to the seated flight attendant, except that one microphone may serve more than one exit, provided the proximity of the exits allows unassisted verbal communication between seated flight attendants.

  [Doc. No. 26003, 58 FR 45229, Aug. 26, 1993, as amended by Amdt.
  25-115, 69 FR 40527, July 2, 2004]

There are systems in place to increase volume in certain instances, eg, on the 767 both engines running gives a 6 dB increase and O2 masks dropped gives an additional 3 dB gain in volume.


Could a light helicopter pilot land a transport-category helicopter?

This is based on knowledge and a little experience. I have flown a Wessex to a hover and they are big, heavy, powerful beasts. If your example

  our good friend Simon

refers to me, then I must also state that I only have about 130 hours so limited hours is more accurate :)

It is said that if you can fly one helicopter, then you can fly another.  Indeed, I learned on the R22 and it's a "fact" (insofar as if enough people repeat something enough times, it becomes a "fact") that if you can fly the R22, then you can fly anything because it demands careful handling and has very small power margins.  I have never heard a really experienced pilot refute that.

If we assume that you have enough fuel and that there is no complex fuel system which requires switching of pumps to keep the engines fed, then yes, you could land anything with one notable exception.

Nearly all helicopters have a couple, either manual or automatic, between the demand for power (how much pitch you are asking for) and the engine power output.  Raise the collective and the throttle is automatically opened and vice-versa.  This is certainly true about transport category aircraft.  On something like early Hilliers, I would need to learn pretty fast that as I increase pitch, I must roll on throttle otherwise, I will stall when I try to climb or raise the lever to come into the hover.  This is practised during PPL but I must admit, I've never used manual throttle control since I got my license.

Another area of concern would be over controlling but that's easy to deal with.  I am now thrust into the pilots seat of a type I don't know and I am not licensed for.  I am going to land on the nearest safe spot.  I'm not going to do anything fancy whatsoever so, if I need a descent, I will lower the lever gently and use the cyclic to maintain my speed. Then I'll climb a little by gently raising the cyclic until I start to climb.  All helicopters fly nicely at about 60 kts so I will pitch for that speed. The only thing I need to look at to ensure the limits aren't busted is airspeed.  Any helicopter pilot would get the feel of this in very little time as would any fixed wing pilot.  It's just a question of how heavy the controls are and how much they physically need to move but that's quickly explored by starting gently and using just enough to do what you need to do.

Let's assume that the subject craft does have automatic throttle control.

I will also assume that we are in VMC otherwise, we are all going to die.

There are only two other areas of concern that I can think of and that's the type of the landing gear (skids vs wheels and how many) and the height of your seat above the ground.

One major difference between rotaries and fixed wing is that there is no stall speed and all helicopters can land with the same forward speed and rate of descent.  I can, if I want to, bring the craft to a hover and stop to have a good think about what comes next.  To come into a hover is also easy.  You can do it by the numbers but the practical way is to keep your speed over the ground so that the site picture is apparently a fast walking speed and keep the landing spot in the centre of the window.  if the landing spot moves up, decrease your rate of descent and vice-versa.  Do this, and you will arrive close to the spot at a sensible speed and with a low rate of descent.  Vortex ring state won't be a concern for me.  I won't know at which speed I will lose translational lift but it will be somewhere between 10 and 15 kt, so I'll be waiting for that little shudder to start and the nose to swing a little, ready to bring in power and pedal.

I believe that most, perhaps all, wheeled transport helicopters have wheel brakes, but I will have no clue how use these.  So, I am going to land zero-zero and ensure that I am directly into wind and on a level surface.  The next think is how will I know when I've landed?

When I first landed a B206, it was on my conversion course so I already knew how to land smoothly.  All I had to do to deal with the extra height I was sitting above the ground was "feel" the aircraft down.  It can be surprisingly difficult to know when a helicopter is fully on the ground and not flying it all the way down is one way to get into trouble.

I would deal with this by feeling for the first contact and then smoothly, but not too quickly, lowering the lever.  This does two things.  It ensures a firm contact and removes my biggest landing worry in an unfamiliar type which is dynamic rollover.  It won't be pretty and I might even get a blade strike somewhere but with power now off, we'll all walk away.

So in summary, I wouldn't need any assistance but, if I can figure out where the transmit button is and how to tune the radio, I will try to get some anyway.


What are the FAA sport-pilot self-certification standards?

Unless the pilot has had their certificate revoked or suspended by the FAA for their medical condition or has failed an application for a medical certificate1, they would probably be fine after seeing a physician. FAR 61.23(c)(2) states that sport pilots using a driver's license to satisfy medical requirements must:

  (ii) Have been found eligible for the issuance of at least a third-class airman medical certificate at the time of his or her most recent application (if the person has applied for a medical certificate);

  (iii) Not have had his or her most recently issued medical certificate (if the person has held a medical certificate) suspended or revoked or most recent Authorization for a Special Issuance of a Medical Certificate withdrawn; and

  (iv) Not know or have reason to know of any medical condition that would make that person unable to operate a light-sport aircraft in a safe manner.

If the holder has a valid US driver's license, it would (presumably) be taken upon the certificate holder to have "reason to know" by virtue of having a checkup with a physician to check that this condition does not affect their ability to fly safely, especially if the person involved was in any sort of doubt as to their medical condition.

However, if they have had a checkup with a physician that finds no particular issues, and that condition does not affect the validity of their driver's license, they should be fine.

1: By section (ii), the pilot must still have a medical test and pass for at least a Class 3 medical certificate, if the FAA has revoked or found unsatisfactory their previous medical under a Class 1 or Class 2 certificate.


How can we determine the maximum camber and thickness for airplane wings?

Camber pushes the lift coefficient operating range up and increases the pitching moment of an airfoil. It is advised to use lots of camber if you need to create lots of lift at low speed and have no need to fly fast. Conversely, high speed aircraft use uncambered wings. Flaps add camber - this makes them so effective for lowering the minimum speed of heavy aircraft.

Comparison of the same baseline airfoil at different camber values (picture source). This is taken from NACA Report 824 which later was turned into one of the most important books for aerodynamicists.

Wing thickness helps to build a lighter wing but will increase friction drag due to higher supervelocities caused by the displacement effect of the thick wing and cause earlier flow separation because the boundary layer is more stressed. In the end, you need to find a compromise: A 15% - 16% thickness is quite normal for GA aircraft, and high aspect ratio wings like those of the B-24 and the B-29 had a root thickness of  22%, but tapered the thickness down towards the outer wing as soon as practical. The tip thickness of both was just 9%.

The maximum lift will peak around 12% to 15% relative thickness. Below I copied figure 85 from NACA Report 460 to illustrate the point:

Now this was all subsonic aerodynamics. Once you move closer to the speed of sound, the supervelocities can cause pockets of supersonic air which end in a local shock. Therefore, the optimum thickness is reduced as the cruise speed approaches Mach 1, and wing sweep is added to cheat a little and keep thickness higher. Modern airliners use airfoils of around 13% relative thickness, and supersonic wings rarely use more than 6% relative thickness at the root, tapering to 2% to 3% at the tip.


Ilyushin Il-80

Source: Wikipedia

The "canoe" is thought to house "advanced" satellite communications equipment. This is a classified aircraft though, so there isn't a lot of publicly available information on exactly what other equipment might be contained in that hump.


How to calculate variable pitch propeller parameters?

There are a couple of key parameters in propeller design, the main ones being the power to drive the propeller, and the thrust that the propeller delivers.

A blade element of a propeller looks like the figure above, from E. Torenbeek, Synthesis Of Subsonic Aircraft Design, which shows the characteristic angles:

The angle between blade chord and propeller plane is the geometric pitch (blade angle $\beta$)
Angle of attack of the blade element $\alpha = \beta - \Phi$
The effective pitch angle is $\Phi = arctan (V / \omega*r)$. This is often given relative to rotational speed $n$ = rounds per second of the propeller, and the propeller diameter R:
$$ \Phi = arctan \frac {V}{n \cdot D } * \frac{1}{\pi \cdot r / R}$$

The advance ratio J of the propeller is

$$ J = \frac {V}{n \cdot D}$$

Induced velocity should be constant over the blade, implying that $\beta$ decreases linearly with increasing r: the propeller blade twist. Because the twist changes linearly, one point on the blade can be taken as the representative blade $\beta$, and this is usually taken at either 70% or 75% of the radial distance.

It can be shown that for a given blade geometry, the power and thrust coefficients $C_P$ and $C_T$ of the propeller are determined only by J and $\beta_{0.75}$. If tip speed is below speed of sound and the blades are not stalled, Mach and Reynolds number effects are negligible.
$$ C_P = \frac {P}{\rho \cdot n^3 \cdot D^5}$$
$$ C_T = \frac {T}{\rho \cdot n^2 \cdot D^4}$$

We can now look up $C_P$ as function of J in for instance NACA reports from the NACA server (check NACA WR 286). Unfortunately these diagrams are not given in metric units, so would need to be converted. But there are many other sources, such as underneath from a question on this forum.

Regarding the profiles: propeller design is pretty specialistic but old fashioned NACA profiles are still being used in helicopter blades for both main rotor and tail rotor. For a symmetrical profile NACA 0012 would be a representative choice, again available from the NASA report server, for instance NACA TN 4357. A google search on NACA 0012 data results in lots of hits. A reference book on this is Theory Of Wing Sections by Abbott & Von Doenhoff.

For the chord length, you may want to have a look at existing propeller designs and their aspect ratio (propeller radius/avg chord). You could start with a value of 15 -20.

There is quite some more info on propeller design for the pre-design phase that you are in, in Torenbeek's book referenced above, including on design for variable incidence props.


The decrease in stall AOA is more than offset by a decrease in the AOA required to achieve the same total lift and the result is indicated stall speed actually drops a little bit.  And pilots generally don't fly AOA itself as a parameter, but pitch and speed.

But the main thing is the power required to fly is less in ground effect so there is more power available to accelerate.  Normally when taking off you rotate and start right up because even though you are initially below best climb performance speed, there is ample reserve and you accelerate to it with no problem. Problem is in marginal conditions, where the airplane won't climb at all unless it's at its most efficient climb speed, you need to accelerate somehow without trying to climb, and you can't just roll along the ground faster, so you take advantage of the power bonus you get in ground effect.

Ground effect is much stronger the higher the aspect ratio.  How strong?  Watch this glider's L/D go through the roof:


What are the CONT and FLT modes of the 737 start switches?

The 737 has two separate engine-igniter systems (each of which has igniters on both engines).  Each engine has four possible igniter modes (except for earlier-model Originals, which have five) - in clockwise order 'round the knob, they're GND, OFF, CONT (or, for early Originals, L IGN and R IGN), and FLT.

CONT mode turns one of the igniter systems on (which igniter system is used depends on the position of a separate switch), and is used for takeoff and landing.

GND mode on an Original or Classic, or on an NG that's on the ground, also uses a single igniter system, and is used for ground-starting the engines.

FLT mode turns both igniter systems on, the better to help keep the engines operating under adverse conditions, or maximise the chance of a successful midair relight.  In the real world, FLT mode is used only in conditions posing a significant risk of engine flameout (for instance, extreme turbulence or very heavy rain), or if a flameout has already occurred and one or both engines need to be restarted in flight - not for high-altitude cruise flight in general.

On an NG, GND mode is another option for inflight restarts, in which case it uses both igniters (unlike how it operates for ground starts).

Your simulator might be confusing FLT mode with OFF mode (neither igniter system operating), which is the setting normally used in flight (as combustion in a gas-turbine engine is generally self-sustaining unless the engine, or its fuel or air supply, is severely abused).

Additionally, on an NG, the EECs can automatically switch both igniter systems on (if an engine flames out) or off (if bad things happen during ground-starting), no matter what the position of the ignition knobs.


How do planes respond aerodynamically when bringing them into inverted flight by rolling?

I fly such a plane.  My Laser has full inverted systems (oil, gas) and symmetrical airfoils.

You're right that when in upright flight the wings are producing lift in the direction away from the wheels and when in inverted flight the lift vector points in the opposite direction.

You're also correct that the wings are producing zero lift at 90 degrees of bank.

As for what happens during the roll, there's a smooth transition.  Assuming you're maintaining a constant heading, the lift provided by the wings will decrease to zero by the 90 degree of bank point, then resume in full at 180 degrees of bank in the opposite direction relative to the wing.  As lift decreases, the nose of the aircraft will typically decrease precipitously.  It's not an aerodynamic stall and there's no sudden onset.  It's just like rolling into a diving turn with the turn.

This is why trying to roll an airplane with no previous aerobatic training can be fatal.  That "simple roll" you tried can easily result in a >Vne dive.

There are 3 ways to not lose altitude during the roll:

As you suggested, roll fast enough.  My plane will roll a full 360 degrees in a bit over 1 second.  There's not much time to lose altitude :-)
Use "top rudder" (the foot closest to the sky) to lift the nose up.  At the 90 degree point you're using the side of the fuselage as a crude wing.  It works in the right airplane.  It requires an unusually large rudder and a lot of practice.
Anticipate the loss by pitching up a LOT before rolling.  You'll get more of a barrel roll, but it's still a roll.

Please don't try this without competent training.  Stupid people die this way.


What are the components of a crew pairing?

Deadheading is considered duty, so it is part of the duty period, not part of the rest period.
Each duty period is composed of several parts:

a report time, defined in a specified timezone (perhaps GMT, perhaps local, perhaps "home" time of some sort)
time from the report until the first departure, which is typically standardized although it may be variable (45 minutes domestic, 60 minutes international, 75 minutes international overwater, for example)
a series of flight legs, each with its start & stop times, duration, start and end airports, and deadhead status
time between each leg
time from last arrival until release from duty, which accounts for the time on duty required to post-flight the aircraft, clear customs, etc. This is typically standardized in some fashion; xx minutes if clearing customs is not required, yy minutes if it is

For each duty period that does not end back at the base, there will be the intervening crew rest period, or "overnight", which consists of the start and end times of the rest period, its duration, and in practice a specified hotel where the crew will stay.
The pairing itself will typically be published with some summary values, such as total flight time during the pairing, total duty time in the pairing, etc.  If the crew contract specifies "overrides" for pay purposes, these will generally be published as well.  As an example, let's say that the contract specifies pay credit of 1.2 minutes paid for every minute of block time between the hours of 2300 thru 0500, and a particular flight operates from 2200 to 0100.  That is 3 hours of block time, but the last two hours pay at 1.2x, so the pay credit for that leg would be 3.4 hours, or 3:24 of pay even though it's only 3:00 of block. Other contractual rules may specify a minimum pay per duty period, such as 4:00 pay, even if less flying than that takes place. The pairing summary would generally include the total pay credit for the trip; each day's summary might include how that day's pay works out.
Part 117:
The rules of FAR Part 117 specify legal requirements for duty and rest periods; they include the definition of a "Flight Duty Period", which begins at the required report time, and ends at the block-in of the last operating leg. Thus, FDP ends even when a crew remains on duty.  If the last leg of the day is a deadhead, then the FDP might be six hours but the duty day might be longer -- say an hour's ground time, and hour's flight, and 30 minutes to clear customs & leave the airport. When the crew is off duty, then the rest period begins.
Depending on the operation and the contract, the pairing details may align closely with Part 117, or there may be enough additional considerations that what's published on the pairing may go way beyond the Part 117 definitions.  The FDP as defined in Part 117 (along with the other limitations in that regulation) are still tracked, although in some cases contractual constraints may be more limiting or require more bookkeeping (i.e. accounting for pay rules and contractually required rest periods).
FRMS:
When you're looking at things from the perspective of a Fatigue Risk Management System (FRMS), there are other factors to consider.  Not everything that is legal is necessarily safe, and just because some sequence of duty periods is legal doesn't mean it won't be really fatiguing.  For example, a sequence of 11-12 hour duty days flying in the same time zone may be fine, while the same sequence of 11-12 hour days crossing 5-6 time zones will shortly have the crew operating on the "back-side of the clock" in local time, which has its issues.  Worse, if each 11-hour day is followed by a 16 hour overnight, the crew could be waking up later & later (relative the their body-clock time), but operating earlier and earlier in the day (as measured by daylight/nighttime looking out the window) -- which is a serious setup for "not knowing what time it is".  An FRMS would probably need to consider how well or poorly a pairing or set of pairings works when considered against circadian rhythms and similar factors.  This would involve tracking data beyond what is published for the typical crew trip-sheet.
At a minimum, you might want to see flights and days and rest periods considered in both a constant (say, "home" time) reference and also a "local time" reference -- even if what is published to the crews is all stated in Zulu time.
Block Time:
The question was asked in comments, when does Block Time begin & end? When the schedule is being built, Block Time corresponds to the scheduled departure and arrival times of the flight. The book definition of block time is that it begins when the aircraft begins forward movement under its own power for the purpose of flight, and ends when it comes to rest with no further movement intended. In practice, block time is almost always recorded by ACARS, which uses "all doors closed + brakes released" -- i.e. the start of the pushback operation -- as the block-out time, and "entry door open" (i.e. pulled into the gate and door is opened to let people out) as the block-in time.
This practice slightly over-states the block time as compared to the book definition, since one can release the brakes, then begin the pushback (under tug power, not aircraft power, and not "forward movement"), start engines, and so forth, and several minutes may elapse before the aircraft actually moves forward.  And, if you arrive at the gate but the jetbridge isn't quickly pulled up to the aircraft, you may be stopped for some length of time before the ACARS records the "in" event.  These distinctions are evidently acceptable to the FAA, since this seems to be a fairly universal practice to use ACARS times.
Typically, the reporting from the aircraft back to Dispatch or headquarters will have "out" (i.e. out from the gate, block time began), "off" (i.e. off the ground, flight time began), "on" (i.e. on the ground, landed), and "in" times. The aircraft logs are mainly interested in flight time, from "off" to "on", while crew recordkeeping is pretty much exclusively interested in block time, from "out" to "in". When FAR 117 refers to flight times, it is actually referring to block time "out" to "in" and is unconcerned with actual takeoff & landing times. One explanation being, the crew is as much responsible for the operation of the aircraft while taxiing around JFK on the ground, and needs to be alert in order to avoid mistakes (entering a runway without clearance, for instance), as much then as when they're in the air. So all "operating" time counts the same, on the ground and in flight.


What is the fastest possible transatlantic flight today?

If you prefer something more realistic and readily available, go with the fastest business jet, the Cessna Citation X, or if you need a little more range, the Gulfstream 650. The Cessna can cruise at Mach 0.935 over maybe 3000 miles (officially 3460 nm, but certainly a little less when flown at top speed), and the G650 has a range of 6000 nm at Mach 0.925. Thanks to @Lnafziger for helping with the facts. Bonus: Both are useable from a lot more airstrips than any airliner.

The flying time from London to New York will be less than 5 hours - still quite a bit faster than flying with an airline. By the way, the airliner record on this route is still held by the Vickers VC-10 with a tad above 5 hours. If you go from London to Boston, the Cessna will have just enough range, for all other routes I recommend the Gulfstream.

The bureaucratic procedure for making an F-22 available will give your protagonist ample time to cross the Atlantic dozens of times in a business jet. Add to this the stationing of a refueling tanker in the middle of the Atlantic (hint: That alone takes more time than what the F-22 needs to fly the full distance, so its realistic mission time will easily double).


What is the relation between airspeed and altitude at fixed throttle setting in a private jet?

The basic principles needed for an answer are:

Thrust varies linearly with air density.
Lift at constant angle of attack (AoA) equally varies linearly with air density.
Increasing the angle of attack from a low value will improve the lift to drag ratio (L/D), while increasing it from a higher value than the AoA at optimum L/D will decrease it.
The aircraft will settle at the point where speed equals drag and lift equals weight. If the altitude change improves L/D, the aircraft has excess thrust to fly faster.
Due to the atmospheric lapse rate, the speed of sound decreases with altitude.
Above a certain Mach number ($M_{dd}$ = drag divergence Mach number), drag increases nonlinearly over dynamic pressure.

Now the answer depends on where you start:

Low altitude, moderate throttle setting: The aircraft will speed up, because it was flying at a low AoA in dense air. Climbing brings it closer to the polar point of optimum L/D.
Low altitude, high throttle setting: If the aircraft flew at close to its $M_{dd}$, climbing will put it in colder air where it needs to fly slower to maintain the same Mach number. Depending on the starting speed, the aircraft might slow down.
High altitude, moderate throttle setting: Now the thrust decrease with altitude will dominate the equation, because the aircraft will fly close to its optimum polar point. Once it flies above the AoA of minimum drag, climbing will slow it down.
High altitude, high throttle setting: If it flies above the tropopause and close to the polar point of minimum drag, the air temperature does not change with altitude, and climbing will not change flight speed. It will stay close to its $M_{dd}$. Once it flies above the polar point of minimum drag, however, climbing will again slow it down.


Many modern gliders only have one wheel -- two is a great luxury!

In a glider the wing and flight controls remain effective until the aircraft is almost completely stopped - with a little training and practice it's possible to balance on the one (or two) wheels right up to the point where you're nearly stopped, at which point the glider will gently tip onto one of its wings as it comes to a halt.

As you've surmised the wingtip usually has some reinforcement or other provision (such as a skid plate or a small wheel) to prevent damage when it contacts the ground. The photo below is of one of these wingtip wheels.


Where to find the various cargo hold dimensions and volumes of transport aircraft, such as the A330-300?

The [relevant] dimensions of the cargo compartments are published by the manufacturers. For all Airbus planes, visit: Airbus / Airport and Maintenance Planning. You can also search for other manufacturers.

For the requested number of containers, here they are for the A330-300/900 (no need for the volume as the containers are standardized):

The documents also include the locations of cargo doors.


Am I Required to Use the Runway Advised by a Unicom?

You are not required, but it is advisable if there are other aircraft in the pattern.  My home airport often does not have anyone in the pattern and pilots that are based there will sometimes land opposite of the advised runway because their hangars are located at the other end of the runway from the FBO.  This means that they can either land long or do a long rollout after landing and then turn off at their hangars.  If they landed on the advised runway, they would having to taxi all the way back down from the FBO end of the airport or applying brakes to try to make one of the turnoffs to the taxiway.  You just listen on the CTAF and announce your intentions if you don't hear anyone.  It is probably more used when a pilot is flying back and wants to just make a long straight in approach while also ending up at his hangar with minimal wait time.