Aviation Quotes - Page 14

• In every squadron there were, perhaps, four or five pilots who exuded confidence. They knew that they were going out to shoot. The rest knew sub-consciously, that they would make up the numbers, mill about, and get shot at.

  Lynn Garrison

  Numbers, Going Out, Four

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• And I have yet to find one single individual who has attained conspicuous success in bringing down enemy aeroplanes who can be said to be spoiled either by his successes or by the generous congratulations of his comrades. If he were capable of being spoiled he would not have had the character to have won continuous victories, for the smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Self-distrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.

  Eddie Rickenbacker

  Congratulations, Character, Fighting

  Eddie Rickenbacker (2012). “Fighting the Flying Circus”, p.48, Tales End Press

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• To be alone in the air at night is to be very much alone indeed. . . cut off from everything and everyone . . . nothing is 'familiar' any longer . . . . I think that unfamiliarity is the most difficult thing to face; one feels rather like Alice in Wonderland after she has nibbled the toadstool that made her grow smaller - and like Alice, one hopes that the process will stop while there is still something left!

  Pauline Gower

  Cutting, Night, Thinking

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• Strive for simplicity. You never have to fix what you leave out.

  Bill Lear

  Simplicity, Strive

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• Good flying never killed an enemy yet.

  Mick Mannock

  Flying, Enemy, Combat

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• The more mechanical becomes the weapons with which we fight, the less mechanical must be the spirit which controls them.

  Archibald Wavell, 1st Earl Wavell

  Fighting, Weapons, Spirit

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• To the aircraft I aim, not the man.

  Francesco Baracca

  Men, He Man, Combat

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• Of all my accomplishments I may have achieved during the war, I am proudest of the fact that I never lost a wingman.

  Erich Hartmann

  War, Accomplishment, May

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• It was my view that no kill was worth the life of a wingman. . . . Pilots in my unit who lost wingmen on this basis were prohibited from leading a [section]. The were made to fly as wingman, instead.

  Erich Hartmann

  Views, Pilots, Lost

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• Nothing makes a man more aware of his capabilities and of his limitations than those moments when he must push aside all the familiar defenses of ego and vanity, and accept reality by staring, with the fear that is normal to a man in combat, into the face of Death.

  Robert S. Johnson

  Reality, Men, Vanity

  Robert S. Johnson, Martin Caidin “Thunderbolt! The Extraordinary Story of a World War II Ace”, Lulu.com

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• The duty of the fighter pilot is to patrol his area of the sky, and shoot down any enemy fighters in that area. Anything else is rubbish.

  Manfred von Richthofen

  Sky, Enemy, Pilots

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• In nearly all cases where machines have been downed, it was during a fight which had been very short, and the successful burst of fire had occurred within the space of a minute after the beginning of actual hostilities.

  Billy Bishop

  Fighting, Successful, Fire

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I fly close to my man, aim well and then of course he falls down.

  Oswald Boelcke

  Fall, Men, Combat

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• I had no system of shooting as such. It is definitely more in the feeling side of things that these skills develop. I was at the front five and a half years, and you just got a feeling for the right amount of lead.

  Gunther Rall

  Years, Skills, Feelings

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• When one has shot down one's first, second or third opponent, then one begins to find out how the trick is done.

  Manfred von Richthofen

  Done, Opponents, Firsts

  Manfred Von Richthofen (2009). “The Red Baron”, p.93, Pen and Sword

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• I put my bullets into the target as if I placed them there by hand.

  Rene Fonck

  Hands, Target, Bullets

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• You can have computer sights of anything you like, but I think you have to go to the enemy on the shortest distance and knock him down from point-blank range. You'll get him from in close. At long distance, it's questionable.

  Erich Hartmann

  Distance, Thinking, Sight

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• I am not a good shot. Few of us are. To make up for this I hold my fire until I have a shot of less than 20 degrees deflection and until I'm within 300 yards. Good discipline on this score can make up for a great deal.

  John C. Meyer

  Fire, Discipline, Yards

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• I think the first what would happen in the immediate wake of a hard Brexit is a lack of confidence in UK economy. Business is already telling me that they need a year or so to adjust to what is going to change in March 2019. Without a deal, tariffs would immediately kick in and we would need all the physical attributes of a customs border. And that is just the trade aspect. Imagine what would happen if, from one day to the next, we had no aviation agreement or no agreements for dealing with security across Europe.

  Keir Starmer

  Thinking, One Day, March

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come . . . . Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has in it something for every age to investigate.

  Seneca the Younger

  Sorry, Discovery, Age

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• You lived and died alone, especially in fighters. Fighters. Somehow, despite everything, that word had not become sterile. You slipped into the hollow cockpit and strapped and plugged yourself into the machine. The canopy ground shut and sealed you off. Your oxygen, your very breath, you carried into the chilled vacuum, in a steel bottle.

  James Salter

  Oxygen, Vacuums, Steel

  James Salter (2012). “The Hunters”, p.193, Counterpoint Press

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• Anyone who has spent any time in space will love it for the rest of their lives. I achieved my childhood dream of the sky.

  Valentina Tereshkova

  Dream, Space, Sky

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• It was a cherished experience. I feel I got the chance to see the inner workings of the grand order of things. In the overall scheme of things, it proves that men can do about anything they want to if they work hard enough at it, and I knew that I could do it . . . and that leads, of course, to a strong suspicion that everybody else can do it if they want to.

  Scott Carpenter

  Strong, Hard Work, Men

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• A top World War II ace once said that fighter pilots fall into two broad categories: those who go out to kill and those who, secretly, desperately, know they are going to get killed-the hunters and the hunted.

  Nathan Farragut Twining

  War, Fall, Two

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• There is a thrill of vulnerability at all airshows. There is no way of making everything completely safe. When the machines are being thrashed to capacity and the pilots are flying at their limits to dazzle, things are bound to go wrong sometimes. There have been some historic disasters, but the danger is a part of the attraction.

  Alex James

  Flying, Machines, Thrill

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