Aviation Quotes - Page 4

• If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible.

  Bob Hoover

  Flying, Pilots, Flight

  81 Copy quote

• I think it is a pity to lose the romantic side of flying and simply to accept it as a common means of transport, although that end is what we have all ostensibly been striving to attain.

  Amy Johnson

  Mean, Thinking, Flying

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

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• He moves not through distance, but through the ranges of satisfaction that come from hauling himself up into the air with complete and utter control; from knowing himself and knowing his airplane so well that he can come somewhere close to touching, in his own special and solitary way, that thing that is called perfection.

  Richard Bach

  Distance, Moving, Airplane

  Richard Bach (2012). “A Gift of Wings”, p.209, Dell

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• Aviators live by hours, not by days.

  T. H. White

  Flight, Hours, Live By

  "England Have My Bones". Book by T. H. White, 1936.

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• I've learned that it is what I do not know that I fear, and I strive, outwardly from pride, inwardly from the knowledge that the unknown is what will finally kill me, to know all there is to be known about my airplane. I will never die.

  Richard Bach

  Airplane, Pride, I've Learned

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• I have flown in just about everything, with all kinds of pilots in all parts of the world - British, French, Pakistani, Iranian, Japanese, Chinese - and there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between any of them except for one unchanging, certain fact: the best, most skillful pilot has the most experience.

  Chuck Yeager

  Differences, Flying, Chinese

  36 Copy quote

• Cloud-flying requires practice, even if you have every modern instrument, and unless you keep calm and collected you will get into trouble after you have been inside a really thick one for a few minutes. In the very early days of aviation, 1912 to be correct, I emerged from a cloud upside down, much to my discomfort, as I didn't know how to get right way up again. I found out somehow, or I wouldn't be writing this.

  Charles Rumney Samson

  Writing, Clouds, Practice

  9 Copy quote

• The happily married man with a large family is the test pilot for me.

  Nevil Shute

  Men, Pilots, Tests

  Nevil Shute (1954). “Slide rule: the autobiography of an engineer”

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• An airplane stands for freedom, for joy, for the power to understand, and to demonstrate that understanding.

  Richard Bach

  Airplane, Joy, Understanding

  Richard Bach (2012). “Nothing By Chance”, p.96, Simon and Schuster

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• I hope you either take up parachute jumping or stay out of single motored airplanes at night.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Airplane, Night, Jumping

  7 Copy quote

• Rule books are paper - they will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal.

  Ernest K. Gann

  Book, Paper, Stones

  Ernest K. Gann (1986). “Fate is the Hunter: A Pilot's Memoir”, p.153, Simon and Schuster

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• Flying. Whatever any other organism has been able to do man should surely be able to do also, though he may go a different way about it.

  Samuel Butler

  Airplane, Men, Flying

  Samuel Butler (1951). “Notebooks”

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• And in that narrow cockpit I wept, as I shall never weep again, when I felt the concrete brush against his wheels and, with a great sweep of the wrist, dropped him on the ground like a cut flower. As always, I carefully cleared the engine, turned off all the switches one by one, removed the straps, the wires and the tubes which tied me to him, like a child to his mother. And when my waiting pilots and my mechanics saw my downcast eyes and my shaking shoulders, they understood and returned to the dispersal in silence.

  Pierre Clostermann

  Mother, Children, Flower

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• I don't think I possess any skill that anyone else doesn't have. I've just had perhaps more of an opportunity, more of an exposure, and been fortunate to survive a lot of situations that many other weren't so lucky to make it. It's not how close can you get to the ground, but how precise can you fly the airplane. If you feel so careless with you life that you want to be the world's lowest flying aviator you might do it for a while. But there are a great many former friends of mine who are no longer with us simply because they cut their margins to close.

  Bob Hoover

  Inspirational, Life, Airplane

  85 Copy quote

• I sometimes still go out hunting for bad weather, flying low in simple airplanes to explore the inner reaches of the clouds. Less experienced pilots occasionally join me, not to learn formal lessons about weather flying, but with a more advanced purpose in mind - to accompany me in the slow accumulation of experience through circumstances that never repeat in a place that defies mastery.

  William Langewiesche

  Airplane, Simple, Hunting

  William Langewiesche (1998). “Inside the Sky: A Meditation on Flight”, Pantheon

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• Flying is like sex - I've never had all I wanted but occasionally I've had all I could stand.

  Stephen Coonts

  Sex, Flying, Flight

  Stephen Coonts (2010). “The Cannibal Queen: A Flight Into the Heart of America”, p.66, Open Road Media

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• Never stop feeling and seeing and being excited with great things like air and engines and sounds of sunlight within you.

  Richard Bach

  Air, Feelings, Sound

  "Nothing by Chance". Book by Richard Bach, 1969.

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• The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine.

  Plato

  Wings, Race, Flying

  Plato (1953). “Plato: With an English Translation”

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• An airplane might disappoint any pilot but it'll never surprise a good one.

  Len Morgan

  Airplane, Pilots, Might

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• The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire.

  Charles Kingsford Smith

  Fire, Boards, Fuel

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• Too often little attention is paid to individual talent. instead, education goes on dividing people according to their sex, and putting them in little feminine or masculine pigeonholes ... Girls are shielded and sometimes helped so much that they lose initiative and begin to believe the signs 'Girls don't' and 'Girls can't' which mark their paths... Consequently, it seems almost necessary to evolve different methods of instruction for them when they later take up the same subjects.

  Amelia Earhart

  Girl, Sex, Women

  14 Copy quote

• This is a Solo Flight, but I want aviation enthusiasts and adventurers everywhere to join me in the endeavour.

  Steve Fossett

  Want, Flight, Endeavour

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• A sky as pure as water bathed the stars and brought them out.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Stars, Sky, Water

  9 Copy quote

• Sometimes, flying feels too godlike to be attained by man. Sometimes, the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see .

  Charles Lindbergh

  Beautiful, Eye, Men

  Charles A. Lindbergh, Reeve Lindbergh (2003). “The Spirit of St. Louis”, p.288, Simon and Schuster

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• Ah hell. We had more fun in a week than those weenies had in a lifetime.

  Pancho Barnes

  Fun, Flight, Hell

  27 Copy quote