ASTB-E · Full battery, not the OAR
Aviation and Nautical Information
Aviation and Nautical Information is the ASTB-E subtest whose items ask how an aircraft flies, what its parts do, what the rules of flight say and what nautical terms mean, and you pick the correct answer among four.
- Items
- 30
- Time
- 20 minutes
- Format
- Computer-adaptive
- Answer options
- 4
- Going back
- None
- Counts toward
- Not part of the OAR
Screens of the trainer
The subtest
Measures
The subtest measures knowledge of aviation and nautical terminology, familiarity with aircraft components and how they work, basic aerodynamic principles, and basic flight rules and regulations.
Navy and Marine Corps aviation applicants, pilot and flight officer, take it as part of the full battery. It is not part of the Officer Aptitude Rating (OAR), which is made of Math Skills, Reading Comprehension and Mechanical Comprehension, and applicants who take the OAR alone never see it.
Format
The subtest is computer-adaptive: a right answer brings a harder item, a wrong answer an easier one. There is no skipping, no going back and no changing an answer.
Each item is a question or an incomplete statement followed by four choices, and you pick the one that answers it or completes it. The items are drawn from a library of several hundred, each scaled for difficulty.
Scoring
The items are scaled for difficulty, and the score is comparable between test-takers who saw different items.
Item types
One question, four choices
Each item is a short question on one point of aviation or nautical knowledge: how an aircraft type climbs, what an instrument measures, which aircraft has the right of way, what a Navy rating means, or a first of naval aviation.
The hardest items ask for a year or a rating code; the easiest, which aircraft has the right of way.
Free practice test
Item 1 of 5
Ground effect is a phenomenon that, within about one wingspan of the ground,
Show the answer
Answer: reduces induced drag and increases effective lift
Near the ground the downwash is blocked, so induced drag falls and effective lift rises.
Ground effect acts on induced drag, not parasite drag, and lowers total drag.
Less induced drag means less thrust to hold airspeed, not more.
Item 2 of 5
Under the Navigation Rules, a vessel is underway when she is
Show the answer
Answer: not at anchor, made fast to the shore, or aground
Underway means not at anchor, not made fast to the shore and not aground.
Her ability to maneuver plays no part in the definition.
The other options define three other terms: restricted in her ability to maneuver, not under command, and in sight of one another.
Item 3 of 5
The helicopter control whose function is to regulate engine rpm is the
Show the answer
Answer: throttle
The throttle, a twist grip on the collective lever, regulates engine rpm.
The collective sets main rotor blade pitch and the cyclic tilts the rotor disk.
The antitorque pedals set tail rotor pitch.
Item 4 of 5
A mariner sights a buoy with red and white vertical stripes and a single red spherical topmark. This buoy marks
Show the answer
Answer: a fairway or mid-channel with navigable water all around it
Red and white vertical stripes with one red sphere on top mark safe water: a fairway, mid-channel or landfall buoy.
Starboard-side marks are red.
Isolated dangers wear black and red bands with two spheres, and special-purpose areas are yellow.
Item 5 of 5
USS Langley (CV-1) holds which place in US Navy history?
Show the answer
Answer: The Navy's first aircraft carrier
Langley, converted from the collier Jupiter, was recommissioned in 1922 as the Navy's first aircraft carrier.
She was rebuilt into a seaplane tender in the 1930s, but was not the first of those.
A battleship is another type of warship, and the Navy's first rigid airship was the Shenandoah.
The Frontline Forge trainer
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An explanation after each answer
Training mode shows the correct answer after each item and explains it. The clock stops while you read, and Previous takes you back to any answered item.
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The real format, 600 items
Test mode runs 30 items in 20 minutes with no going back, the format of the real subtest, then reviews every item. Each session draws its 30 from a bank of 600, written from the FAA's flight handbooks, the Navy's and Coast Guard's seamanship and navigation manuals, Bowditch and the Navy's history pages. The 600 cover airplanes and helicopters, ships and seamanship, and naval aviation history, and none asks for a computation.
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Ranked against other test-takers
Each score is ranked against the scores of other test-takers. The Statistics page plots the ranking of every attempt, so you see whether you are beating more test-takers than before.