Military Aviation Quotes

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

  Bob Hoover

  Flying, Pilots, Aviation

  79 Copy quote

• 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, Aviation

  65 Copy quote

• Air power alone does not guarantee America's security, but I believe it best exploits the nation's greatest asset - our technical skill.

  Hoyt Vandenberg

  Military, Believe, Air

  57 Copy quote

• I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way.

  John Paul Jones

  Life, Fear, Military

  Letter to Le Ray de Chaumont, 16 Nov. 1778

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  52 Copy quote

• Go in close, and when you think you are too close, go in closer.

  Thomas McGuire

  Thinking, Pilots, Aviation

  45 Copy quote

• Air power may either end war or end civilization.

  Winston Churchill

  Military, War, Air

  Winston Churchill, Robert Rhodes James (1980). “Churchill speaks: Winston S. Churchill in peace and war : collected speeches, 1897-1963”, Atheneum

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible.

  Eddie Rickenbacker

  Airplane, Impossible, Aviation

  56 Copy quote

• The J3 Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely kill you.

  C. Maxwell Stanley

  Airplane, World, Pilots

  21 Copy quote

• Fight on and fly on to the last drop of blood and the last drop of fuel, to the last beat of the heart.

  Manfred von Richthofen

  Military, Heart, Fighting

  179 Copy quote

• To have command of the air means to be able to cut an enemy's army and navy off from their bases of operation and nullify their chances of winning the war.

  Giulio Douhet

  Military, War, Mean

  General Giulio Douhet (2014). “Command Of The Air”, p.42, Pickle Partners Publishing

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Air control can be established by superiority in numbers, by better employment, by better equipment, or by a combination of these factors.

  Carl Andrew Spaatz

  Military, Air, Numbers

  12 Copy quote

• Not to have an adequate air force in the present state of the world is to compromise the foundations of national freedom and independence.

  Winston Churchill

  Military, Air, Independence

  Winston S. Churchill (2013). “Arms and the Covenant”, p.54, RosettaBooks

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we maintain our faith in God, love of freedom, and superior global air power, the future looks good.

  Curtis LeMay

  Military, Air, Looks

  118 Copy quote

• Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, - and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air.

  John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

  Laughter, Military, Clouds

  In K. Rhys More Poems from the Forces (1943) "High Flight"

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fighting in the air is not sport. It is scientific murder.

  Eddie Rickenbacker

  Sports, Military, Fighting

  8 Copy quote

• Adolf Galland said that the day we took our fighters off the bombers and put them against the German fighters, that is, went from defensive to offsensive, Germany lost the air war. I made that decision and it was my most important decision during World War II. As you can imagine, the bomber crews were upset. The fighter pilots were ecstatic.

  Jimmy Doolittle

  Military, War, Air

  54 Copy quote

• Only air power can defeat air power. The actual elimination or even stalemating of an attacking air force can be achieved only by a superior air force.

  Alexander P. de Seversky

  Air, Aviation, Defeat

  9 Copy quote

• A modern, autonomous, and thoroughly trained Air Force in being at all times will not alone be sufficient, but without it there can be no national security.

  Henry H. Arnold

  Air, Aviation, Modern

  46 Copy quote

• Once the command of the air is obtained by one of the contending armies, the war becomes a conflict between a seeing host and one that is blind.

  H. G. Wells

  War, Army, Air

  H. G. Wells (2015). “Anticipations: H. G. Wells Collections”, p.97, 谷月社

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The function and Navy in any future war will be to support the dominant air arm.

  Jimmy Doolittle

  Military, War, Air

  19 Copy quote

• My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power - not with ground forces.

  Curtis LeMay

  Military, Age, Vietnam

  "Mission With LeMay: My Story". Book by Curtis E LeMay and MacKinlay Kantor, p. 565, 1965.

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• Always keep an 'out' in your hip pocket.

  Bevo Howard

  Pockets, Pilots, Hips

  7 Copy quote

• Airpower has become predominant, both as a deterrent to war, and-in the eventuality of war-as the devastating force to destroy an enemy's potential and fatally undermine his will to wage war.

  Omar N. Bradley

  Military, War, Enemy

  20 Copy quote

• The mastery of the turn is the story of how aviation became practical as a means of transportation. It is the story of how the world became small.

  William Langewiesche

  Mean, Mastery, Stories

  6 Copy quote