Help me with Instrument Written Question

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Edge540

Filing Flight Plan
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Feb 15, 2016
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Edge540
I took my instrument written today. The question that bothered me most was a flight planning problem. I will try to summarize from memory:
You are diverting for a thunderstorm in Oregon. Route of flight is OED V287 OTH V121 EUG. Wind is 340 at 25 and you burn 15gph at 135 knots. No magnetic variation given.
Answer options:
1) 44 minutes 10 gallons
2) 52 minutes 14 gallons
3) 61 minutes 19 gallons
I worked the problem several times but didn't come up with a correct answer.

The test also contained 62 questions and it said 2 would not count against me. My results were definitely based on the full 62 though. Any ideas?

Thanks
 
Foreflight says 65min & 17.3gal. Maybe the question was one of the two, more like a survey of 'which wrong answer people would choose'.
 
Exactly, all of my answers were over the time limit and NONE of their fuel answers make any sense. I almost chose 1) because its the closest correlation between time and fuel.
 
Edge540 said:
I took my instrument written today. The question that bothered me most was a flight planning problem. I will try to summarize from memory:
You are diverting for a thunderstorm in Oregon. Route of flight is OED V287 OTH V121 EUG. Wind is 340 at 25 and you burn 15gph at 135 knots. No magnetic variation given.
Answer options:
1) 44 minutes 10 gallons
2) 52 minutes 14 gallons
3) 61 minutes 19 gallons
I worked the problem several times but didn't come up with a correct answer.

The test also contained 62 questions and it said 2 would not count against me. My results were definitely based on the full 62 though. Any ideas?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Is that one of the questions where there is an added instruction that says "add x minutes and x gallons for climb-out" ?
 
I found that with a steam E6B I couldn't get close enough to be able to choose the correct answers. I had to go out and buy a digital one, use it for the test and then never use it again.
What were you using?
 
My rough calculations came up with 71 minutes and 17.7 gallons.
So I would be inclined to choose answer #3 since it is the "closest" match.

What was the correct answer on that one?

Edit: I took mag var into account and came up with the exact same numbers so it is a wash.
 
Last edited:
That's one of the questions I settled to guess and get wrong on the written. Waste of time IMO.
 
Wow, I feel really dumb. I don't even know what the question is?
 
Edge540 said:
I took my instrument written today. The question that bothered me most was a flight planning problem. I will try to summarize from memory:
You are diverting for a thunderstorm in Oregon. Route of flight is OED V287 OTH V121 EUG. Wind is 340 at 25 and you burn 15gph at 135 knots. No magnetic variation given.
Answer options:
1) 44 minutes 10 gallons
2) 52 minutes 14 gallons
3) 61 minutes 19 gallons
I worked the problem several times but didn't come up with a correct answer.

The test also contained 62 questions and it said 2 would not count against me. My results were definitely based on the full 62 though. Any ideas?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I had the same issues. I went to the flight plan form and noticed 20E (-20) for mag variation so I used 320 for wind direction. I believe my GS at one point was 111.6.
Looking all the variations that they could have mislabeled it, nothing came close. When I went a few pages ahead to the flight log, it states "Average" 135kts GS and TAS of 155. I used that number and came up with 60:43 on flight time. I do not remember which answer I selected but I believe it was for 61 minute diversion.

I think the testing site needs to be notified........
 
BigBadLou said:
My rough calculations came up with 71 minutes and 17.7 gallons.
So I would be inclined to choose answer #3 since it is the "closest" match.

What was the correct answer on that one?

Edit: I took mag var into account and came up with the exact same numbers so it is a wash.
Click to expand...

I had the Instrument written exam today (92% woo!) and I got this exact question. I did the calculations and came up with the same numbers as you - 71 minutes and 17.7 gallons. No answer matched so I chose (c) 61 minutes, 19 gallons, since it was the closest and also the most conservative for fuel planning. I got it wrong. I don't know what the correct answer is according to the FAA, but you can eliminate (c).

The question also specified the altitude as 10,000 feet. Maybe this affects the fuel burn.
 
I don't know how you guys could possibly get 61 or 71 minutes. It's 138 miles. At 135 KTAS, it's going to take 61 minutes IN NO WIND.

The first 79 miles have an almost direct headwind of 24 knots. The remainder is pretty close to a crosswind. That adds 10% in time, so now you get 67 minutes. Now -- and this has to be somewhere in the question -- if that 135 KTAS was really 135 KCAS, you're 20% faster, for an answer of 53 minutes, and 13 gal at 15 GPH.

I would have chosen #2. That's also the one that gets the closest consistency between fuel burn and time, since we know it's 15 GPH.
 
ON my IR written, I just randomly picked an answer and didn't even fully read the questions related to the flight planning or diversions. Those were the only ones I got wrong. When the oral part of the check ride started, I told the DE I got all the flight planning questions wrong from just randomly picking an answer because I didn't give a **** about a flight that I'm not making. He laughed. I passed.
 
So you get one point for this question that I shed 15 minutes to compute as opposed to one point for the what causes weather question. The correct solution is to memorize that damn answer and move on as I have avionics and apps that compute this fast. Wasting time is not good CDM.
 
Or just accept the likely penalty for guessing, and move to the next question:)
 
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