Aviation Quotes - Page 37

• That's what we're trained to do.

  Chesley Sullenberger

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• Hours and hours passed, with nothing to do but keep the compass on its course and the plane on a level keel. This sounds easy enough, but its very simplicity becomes a danger when your head keeps nodding with weariness and utter boredom and your eyes everlastingly try to shut out the confusing rows of figures in front of you, which will insist on getting jumbled together.

  Amy Johnson

  Eye, Boredom, Simplicity

  Amy Johnson (1939). “Sky Roads of the World”

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• If you want to grow old as a pilot, you've got to know when to push it, and when to back off.

  Chuck Yeager

  Want, Pilots, Flight

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• There's no such thing as a natural-born pilot.

  Chuck Yeager

  Pilots, Flight, Natural

  Chuck Yeager (1986). “Yeager: An Autobiography”, Bantam

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• I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.

  Tom Stoppard

  Music, Mean, Two

  Tom Stoppard (1999). “Tom Stoppard: plays”

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• The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.

  Douglas Adams

  Funny, Hilarious, Laughter

  Douglas Adams (2009). “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”, p.26, Pan Macmillan

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• I do not use airplanes. They strike me as unsporting. You can have an automobile accident-and survive. You can be on a sinking ship-and survive. You can be in an earthquake, fire, volcanic eruption, tornado, what you will-and survive. But if your plane crashes, you do not survive. And I say the heck with it.

  Isaac Asimov

  Funny, Airplane, Fire

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• Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person?

  Donald Rumsfeld

  September 11, Aircraft Carriers, Air Power

  Donald Rumsfeld, United States. Dept. of Defense. Historical Office (2001). “Public statements of Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, 2001”

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• I will ignore all ideas for new works and engines of war, the invention of which has reached its limits and for whose improvement I see no further hope.

  Frontinus

  War, Ideas, New Work

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• We were once told that the aeroplane had "abolished frontiers"; actually it is only since the aeroplane became a serious weapon that frontiers have become definitely impassable.

  George Orwell

  Air Power, Weapons, Serious

  George Orwell (1968). “The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: In front of your nose, 1945-1950”

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• The cavalry, in particular, were not friendly to the aeroplane, which it was believed, would frighten the horses.

  Walter Alexander Raleigh

  Horse, Friendly, Air Power

  Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh, Henry Albert Jones (1922). “The War in the Air: Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force ...”, The Clarendon Press

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• Aviation is fine as a sport. But as an instrument of war, it is worthless.

  Ferdinand Foch

  Sports, War, Air Power

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• It is not possible . . . to concentrate enough military planes with military loads over a modern city to destroy that city.

  John Thomason

  Military, Cities, Air Power

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• I will not wage war against women and children! I have instructed my air force to limit their attacks to military objectives. However, if the enemy should conclude from this that he might get away with waging war in a different manner he will receive an answer that he'll be knocked out of his wits!

  Adolf Hitler

  Children, Military, War

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• They had bombed London, whether on purpose or not, and the British people and London especially should know that we could hit back. It would be good for the morale of us all.

  Winston Churchill

  People, London, Would Be

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• A thing of orchestrated hell-a terrible symphony of light and flame.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Light, Flames, Symphony

  Edward R. Murrow (1967). “In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938-1961”

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• We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end. We are bombing Germany city by city and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for her to go in with the war. That is our object, and we shall pursue it relentlessly.

  Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

  War, Cities, Order

  Radio address on July 28, 1942. "Bishop George Bell: House of Lords Speeches and Correspondence with Rudolf Hess". Book edited by Peter K. Raina, api.parliament.uk. 2009.

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• As a peace machine, it's value to the world will be beyond computation. Would a declaration of war between Russia and Japan be made, if within an hour there after a swifty gliding aeroplane might take its flight from St Petersburg and drop half a ton of dynamite above the enemy's war offices? Could any nation afford to war upon any other with such hazards in view?

  John Brisben Walker

  War, Russia, Japan

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• Whatever the lengths to which others may go, His Majesty's Government will never resort to the deliberate attack on women and children and other civilians for purposes of mere terrorism.

  Neville Chamberlain

  Children, Government, May

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• War is a nasty, dirty, rotten business. It's all right for the Navy to blockade a city, to starve the inhabitants to death. But there is something wrong, not nice, about bombing that city.

  Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

  War, Nice, Dirty

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• Would not the sight of a single enemy airplane be enough to induce a formidable panic? Normal life would be unable to continue under the constant threat of death and imminent destruction.

  Giulio Douhet

  Airplane, Sight, Enemy

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• The greatest contributor to the feeling of tension and fear of war arose from the power of the bombing aeroplane. If all nations would consent to abolish air bombardment . . . that would mean the greatest possible release from fear.

  Ernest Rutherford

  War, Mean, Air

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• I would attack any squadron blockading a port. Nothing could prevent me from dropping out of the clear blue sky on to a battleship with 400 kilos of explosives in the cockpit. Of course it is true that the pilot would be killed, but everything would blow up, and that's what counts.

  Jules Vedrines

  Blow, Sky, Blue

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• There are a lot of people who say that bombing cannot win the war. My reply to that is that it has never been tried. . . and we shall see.

  Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

  War, Winning, People

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• Hitler built a fortress around Europe, but he forgot to put a roof on it.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Europe, Air Power, Fortresses

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