Great Aviation Quotes - Page 6

• The bluebird carries the sky on his back.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Niece, Animal, Sky

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “Quotable Thoreau: An A to Z Glossary of Inspiring Quotations from Henry David Thoreau”, p.20, BookBaby

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• Most pilots learn, when they pin on their wings and go out and get in a fighter, especially, that one thing you don't do, you don't believe anything anybody tells you about an airplane.

  Chuck Yeager

  Believe, Airplane, Wings

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• Flying is hours and hours of boredom sprinkled with a few seconds of sheer terror.

  Pappy Boyington

  Funny, Humorous, Airplane

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• I think there is something exhilarating in flying amongst clouds, and always get a feeling of wanting to pit my aeroplane against them, charge at them, climb over them to show them you have them beat, circle round them, and generally play with them; but clouds can on occasion hold their own against the aviator, and many a pilot has found himself emerging from a cloud not on a level keel.

  Charles Rumney Samson

  Thinking, Clouds, Play

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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.

  Bob Hoover

  Opportunity, Thinking, Skills

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• My senses of space, of distance, and of direction entirely vanished. When I looked for the ground I sometimes looked down, sometimes up, sometimes left, sometimes right. I thought I was very high up when I would suddenly be thown to earth in a near vertical spin. I thought I was very low to the ground and I was pulled up to 3,000 feet in two minutes by the 500-horsepower motor. It danced, it pushed, it tossed. . . . Ah! la la!

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Distance, Two, Feet

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• Why fly? Simple. I'm not happy unless there's some room between me and the ground.

  Richard Bach

  Simple, Flying, Rooms

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• Flight is the only truly new sensation than men have achieved in modern history.

  James Dickey

  Men, Flying, Pilots

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• 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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• Leader, bandits at 2 o'clock! Roger; it's only 1:30 now-what'll I do 'til then?

  Bill Watterson

  Funny, Leader, Roger

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• Any idiot can get an airplane off the ground, but an aviator earns his keep by bringing it back anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances that man and God can dream up.

  Walter Cunningham

  Dream, Airplane, Men

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• 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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• It is hard enough for anyone to map out a course of action and stick to it, particularly in the face of the desires of one's friends; but it is doubly hard for an aviator to stay on the ground waiting for just the right moment to go into the air.

  Glenn Curtiss

  Air, Waiting, Desire

  Glenn H. Curtiss (1912). “The Curtiss Aviation Book”

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• A pilot who says he has never been frightened in an airplane is, I'm afraid, lying.

  Louise Thaden

  Lying, Airplane, Pilots

  Louise Thaden (1973). “High, Wide and Frightened”, p.15, University of Arkansas Press

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• What is it in fact, this learning to fly? To be precise, it is 'to learn NOT to fly wrong.' To learn to become a pilot is to learn - not to let oneself fly too slowly. Not to let oneself turn without accelerating. Not to cross the controls. Not to do this, and not to do that. . . . To pilot is negation.

  Henri Mignet

  Flying, Pilots, Facts

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• Get rid at the outset of the idea that the airplane is only an air-going sort of automobile. It isn't. It may sound like one and smell like one, and it may have been interior decorated to look like one; but the difference is - it goes on wings.

  Wolfgang Langewiesche

  Airplane, Wings, Ideas

  Wolfgang Langewiesche (1994). “Stick & Rudder: 50th Anniversary Edition”, McGraw-Hill

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• A pilot must have a memory developed to absolute perfection. But there are two higher qualities which he also must have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake.

  Mark Twain

  Memories, Two, Perfection

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• 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

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• 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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• There are two kinds of airplanes - those you fly and those that fly you . . . You must have a distinct understanding at the very start as to who is the boss.

  Ernest K. Gann

  Airplane, Two, Boss

  Ernest K. Gann (1986). “Fate is the Hunter: A Pilot's Memoir”, p.47, 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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• Science, freedom, beauty, adventure: what more could you ask of life? Aviation combined all the elements I loved. There was science in each curve of an airfoil, in each angle between strut and wire, in the gap of a spark plug or the color of the exhaust flame. There was freedom in the unlimited horizon, on the open fields where one landed. A pilot was surrounded by beauty of earth and sky. He brushed treetops with the birds, leapt valleys and rivers, explored the cloud canyons he had gazed at as a child. Adventure lay in each puff of wind.

  Charles Lindbergh

  Children, Adventure, Flames

  Charles Lindbergh, “Untitled”

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• If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I?

  Yip Harburg

  Rainbow, Flying, Littles

  Song: Over the Rainbow

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• 

  Pilots take no special joy in walking: pilots like flying.

  Neil Armstrong

  Joy, Flying, Special

  "In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility". Book by Francis French and Colin Burgess, September 2007.

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• He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Inspirational, Moving On, Dance

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.188, Penguin

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