Aviation Quotes - Page 21

• You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead - There were no birds to fly.

  Lewis Carroll

  Clouds, Sky, Bird

  Adrian Mitchell, Lewis Carroll (2001). “Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass”, p.69, Oberon Books

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• No it was not the novelty, and it was not the danger and the adventure (although these had their charm). It was certainly not a passing whim (if it had been the hard work would have dispelled it in a very short time!). I think there were three chief reasons for my choice of career: First, a real love for, and interest in aviation Secondly, a determination to earn my own money and to make my career a paying proposition. Thirdly, a conviction that aviation was a profession of the future and therefore had room to welcome its new followers.

  Pauline Gower

  Determination, Women, Real

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• My message going forward is that I want to remind everyone in the aviation industry - especially those who manage aviation companies and those who regulate aviation - that we owe it to our passengers to keep learning how to do it better.

  Chesley Sullenberger

  Want, Messages, Company

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

  Bill Lear

  Simplicity, Strive

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• As to rocket ships flying between America and Europe, I believe it is worth seriously trying for. Thirty years ago persons who were developing flying were laughed at as mad, and that scorn hindered aviation. Now we heap similar ridicule upon stratoplane or rocket ships for trans-Atlantic flights.

  Auguste Piccard

  Believe, Years, Europe

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• Good flying never killed an enemy yet.

  Mick Mannock

  Flying, Enemy, Combat

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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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• 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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• 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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• I mean, I had fast motor cars and fast motor bikes, and when I wasn't crashing airplanes, I was crashing motor bikes. It's all part of the game.

  Harry Broadhurst

  Airplane, Mean, Games

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• To the aircraft I aim, not the man.

  Francesco Baracca

  Men, He Man, Combat

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• You don't think much of the individual, because you don't think you've hit him and you hope that he will bail out or something; it's the aeroplane you've hit . . . normally it was more of a game if you like, you were outwitting and shooting down another aircraft, you were simply hitting metal.

  Peter Malam Brothers

  Thinking, Games, Bail

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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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• The most important thing in fighting was shooting, next the various tactics in coming into a fight and last of all flying ability itself.

  Billy Bishop

  Military, Fighting, Flying

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

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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 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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• So it was that the war in the air began. Men rode upon the whirlwind that night and slew and fell like archangels. The sky rained heroes upon the astonished earth. Surely the last fights of mankind were the best. What was the heavy pounding of your Homeric swordsmen, what was the creaking charge of chariots, besides this swift rush, this crash, this giddy triumph, this headlong sweep to death?

  H. G. Wells

  War, Hero, Fighting

  H. G. Wells (2015). “The World Set Free: H. G. Wells Collections”, p.62, 谷月社

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• . . . my pilot pointed to his left front and above, and looking in the direction he pointed, I saw a long dark brown form fairly streaking across the sky. We could see that it was a German machine, and when it got above and behind our middle machine, it dived on it for all the world like a huge hawk on a hapless sparrow.

  James McCudden

  Dark, Sky, Long

  James McCudden (2009). “Flying Fury: Five Years in the Royal Flying Corps”, p.85, Casemate / Greenhill

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• Speed is the cushion of sloppiness.

  William P. Driscoll

  Sloppiness, Speed, Combat

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