Brain Teasers
World War II Fighter Planes
You are the Head Researcher working on improving the survival rate* of the WW2 Alliance Force's fighter planes.
In those days, fighter planes are on single propeller engines. Your task is to collect statistics on the number of bullet holes on fighter planes that just returned from their missions, and use this statistics as a basis to recommend improvement to the design of the fighter planes.
After studying 10,000 planes that returned from the battle field, you discovered that A)60% of the bullet holes are found at the wings of the airplane, B)39% around the cockpit area and only C)1% on the engine area.
Your immediate duty is to use this information to recommend which area (A, B or C) to increase armor plating. You could only increase the armor plating on 1 area instead of all because additional armor plating affects the agility of the fighter plane.
Justify your rationale for your choice of section (linking to the % of bullet holes found).
* Survival rate is determined by whether the plane return safely to ground.
In those days, fighter planes are on single propeller engines. Your task is to collect statistics on the number of bullet holes on fighter planes that just returned from their missions, and use this statistics as a basis to recommend improvement to the design of the fighter planes.
After studying 10,000 planes that returned from the battle field, you discovered that A)60% of the bullet holes are found at the wings of the airplane, B)39% around the cockpit area and only C)1% on the engine area.
Your immediate duty is to use this information to recommend which area (A, B or C) to increase armor plating. You could only increase the armor plating on 1 area instead of all because additional armor plating affects the agility of the fighter plane.
Justify your rationale for your choice of section (linking to the % of bullet holes found).
* Survival rate is determined by whether the plane return safely to ground.
Hint
This is based on real statistical methodology.Answer
Section C - the engine area.On the surface, the engine area seemingly received the least bullet hits (1%) and should not be warranted additional protection. However, this is not true because majority of planes that suffered engine hits have not survived to return from battleground. So there are very few planes contributing to the count on engine hits. On the other hand, the fact that there are many hits on wings and cockpit area and yet many of these planes still returned safely show that these 2 areas are not the most critical area.
Since you could only add armor plate to 1 area - increasing armor plating to the engine area will be most viable in improving the survival rate of the planes.
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i got the answer even without reading the hint. i dunno. i just thought that the engine part has the least bullet hole becauseonce it got hit, survival is very unlikely.... i dunno... but it was fun anyway....
i got the answer even without reading the hint. i dunno. i just thought that the engine part has the least bullet hole becauseonce it got hit, survival is very unlikely.... i dunno... but it was fun anyway....
I'm not so sure of the rationale of this one. To make a real judgement, one would need to know how many planes went down because of bullets to the engine, how many from the wings, and how many from the cockpit. That is to say, if the engine suffered a hit in only 1% of the airplane population, but 1/2 of all hits were critical, while 50% of planes suffered wing hits, with a critical hit rate of only 1/10, we see that (.01x.5=) .005% (5 in every thousand) actual airplanes were destroyed by engine hits, while (.5x.1=).05 (50 in every thousand) were destroyed by fire on the wing, 10x those destroyed by engine fire. Thus, in this situation, it would be wise to shield the airplane's wings.
The answer given in the problem is based on the assumption that the number of engine hits is equal or close to that of hits on the wing. All the problem actually proves is that more people got hit on the wing and survived than got hit in the engine and survived. Why this is is anyones guess.
The answer given in the problem is based on the assumption that the number of engine hits is equal or close to that of hits on the wing. All the problem actually proves is that more people got hit on the wing and survived than got hit in the engine and survived. Why this is is anyones guess.
based on the information given, the most logical place to put extra armor is on the engine. Unfotunetly we dont have the luxery of conducting further research on planes that were shot down, you have to make a logical asumption based on the information you know. This is a good teaser and the right answer.
WOW! I didn't get that at all! I think that it was more like a quiz then a brain teaser.
ez but fun ^_^
Nice
Cool
I must agree with earlier comments that not enough information is provided. It is also more important to know where the planes that were shot down were hit. And there is a very big assumption being inferred that since few of the returned planes had been hit in the engine, that this meant the most of the planes that had been shot down had suffered engine hits.
I can't believe those people calling for additional information - the very fact that of those that do return only 1% have bullets in the engine combined with the knowledge of the number that don't return (obviously for reasons that can only be surmised) shows that the likelihood that damage to the engine area is "harmful to your health" and to be avoided if at all possible!
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