Predictions Quotes - Page 7

• I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we heard of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society.

  Lord Kelvin

  Future, Expectations, Molecules

  "The Experts Speak : The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation" by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, (p. 236), 1984.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Few people who know of the work of Langley, Lilienthal, Pilcher, Maxim and Chanute but will be inclined to believe that long before the year 2000 A.D., and very probably before 1950, a successful aeroplane will have soared and come home safe and sound.

  H. G. Wells

  Believe, Home, Successful

  4 Copy quote

• The United States of America has no intention of finishing second in space. This effort is expensive-but it pays its way for freedom and for America.

  John F. Kennedy

  Future, America, Space

  Undelivered Speech to the Dallas Citizens Council, delivered 22 November 1963, Trade Mart, Dallas, Texas

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A day will come when beings, now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon Earth as a footstool and laugh, and reach out their hands amidst the stars.

  H. G. Wells

  Stars, Hands, Laughing

  7 Copy quote

• I have had the feeling that a properly constructed flying-machine should be capable of being flown as a kite; and conversely, that a properly constructed kite should be capable of use as a flying-machine when driven by its own propellers.

  Alexander Graham Bell

  Flying, Feelings, Machines

  9 Copy quote

• Aerial flight is one of that class of problems with which man will never be able to cope. . . . The example of the bird does not prove that man can fly. Imagine the proud possessor of the aeroplane darting through the air at a speed of several hundred feet per second. It is the speed alone that sustains him. How is he ever going to stop?

  Simon Newcomb

  Future, Men, Air

  4 Copy quote

• I believe the new machine of the Wrights to be the most promising attempt at flight that has yet been made.

  Octave Chanute

  Believe, Machines, Flight

  8 Copy quote

• The machine may even carry mail is special cases. But the useful load will be very small. The machines will eventually be fast, they will be used in sport, but they are not to be thought of as commercial carriers.

  Octave Chanute

  Sports, Special, Machines

  5 Copy quote

• It seems to me that the conquest of the air is the only major task for our generation.

  T. E. Lawrence

  Our Generation, Air, Tasks

  6 Copy quote

• This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He's doomed.

  Harry Frank Guggenheim

  Aviation, Doomed, Fellows

  6 Copy quote

• I do not think that a flight across the Atlantic will be made in our time, and in our time I include the youngest readers.

  Charles Rolls

  Thinking, Aviation, Flight

  12 Copy quote

• No place is safe - no place is at peace. There is no place where a women and her daughter can hide and be at peace. The war comes through the air, bombs drop in the night. Quiet people go out in the morning, and see air-fleets passing overhead - dripping death - dripping death!

  H. G. Wells

  Daughter, Morning, Quiet People

  H. G. Wells (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of H. G. Wells”, p.2393, Delphi Classics

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• This new sport is comparable to no other. It is, in my opinion, one of the most intoxicating forms of sport, and will, I am sure, become one of the most popular. Many of us will perish before then, but that prospect will not dismay the braver spirits. . . . It is so delicious to fly like a bird!

  Marie Marvingt

  Sports, Bird, Spirit

  8 Copy quote

• With the possible exception of having more pleasing lines to the eye while in flight, the monoplane possesses no material advantage over the biplane.

  Glenn Curtiss

  Eye, Lines, Aviation

  22 Copy quote

• The aeroplane is an invention of the devil and will never play any part in such a serious business as the defence of the nation, my boy!

  Sam Hughes

  Boys, Play, Devil

  8 Copy quote

• [Airmail was] an impractical sort of fad, and had no place in the serious job of postal transportation.

  Paul Henderson

  Jobs, Fads, Serious

  4 Copy quote

• Oh well, I suppose lots of people will do it now.

  Arthur Whitten Brown

  People, Aviation, Oh Well

  6 Copy quote

• It is highly unlikely that an airplane, or fleet of them, could ever sink a fleet of Navy vessels under battle conditions.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Airplane, Navy, Battle

  4 Copy quote

• The aeroplane is tragically unsuited for ocean service.

  Hugo Eckener

  Ocean, Aviation, Aeroplanes

  10 Copy quote

• The first real air-liner, carrying some five or six hundred passengers, will probably appear after or towards the end of the battle between fixed and moving-wing machines. And it will be a flying boat.

  Oliver Stewart

  Real, Moving, Air

  Oliver Stewart (1928). “Aeolus: Or, The Future of the Flying Machine”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The helicopter has never achieved much success and . . .may be classes with the ornithopter as obsolete.

  Oliver Stewart

  Class, May, Aviation

  4 Copy quote

• In less than twenty-five years . . . the motor-car will be obsolete, because the aeroplane will run along the ground as well as fly over it.

  Philip Gibbs

  Running, Years, Car

  Philip Gibbs (1928). “The Day After To-morrow: What is Going to Happen to the World?”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is my contention that an agent ideal to the use of the scientific militarist, for both the air raid and the long distance bombardment is now in the process of development; that its eventual perfection is but a matter of time; and its use in warfare is certain to occur. I refer to the rocket. The perfection of the rocket in my opinion will give to future warfare the horror unknown in previous conflicts and will make possible destruction of nations, in a cool, passionless and scientific fashion.

  David Lasser

  Fashion, Distance, Future

  5 Copy quote

• The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space] . . . presents difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished. An analogy such as this may be misleading, and we believe it to be so in this case.

  Richard van der Riet Woolley

  Future, Believe, Space

  5 Copy quote

• The Americans cannot build aeroplanes. They are very good at refrigerators and razor blades.

  Hermann Goring

  Razors, Aviation, Blades

  135 Copy quote