Best 283 quotes in «aviation quotes» category

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

If your opponent dives on you, do not try to evade his onslaught, but fly to meet it.

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

If you would look up bad labor relations in the dictionary, you would have an American Airlines logo beside it.

I go out of my way to stay off commuter planes. I have skipped conferences because I would not fly on marginal airlines (and because of many mishaps, I also avoided flying on ValuJet).

I have flown ValuJet. ValuJet is a safe airline, as is our entire aviation system.

I have been luckier than the law of averages should allow. I could never be so lucky again.

I have discovered that a screw-shaped device such as this, if it is well made from starched linen, will rise in the air if turned quickly.

I have found that women are not only just as much interested as men are in flying, but apparently have less fear than the men have. At least, more women than men asked to go up with me. And when I took them up, they seemed to enjoy it.

I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty. That the reasons flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying.

I must place on record my regret that the human race ever learned to fly.

I learned that danger is relative, and the inexperience can be a magnifying glass.

I just made a balls of it, old boy. That's all there was to it.

I'm getting housemaid's knee kneeling here gulping beauty.

I put the sweat of my life into this project, and if it's a failure, I'll leave the country and never come back.

In any form of attack it is essential to assail your opponent from behind.

Instrument flying is an unnatural act probably punishable by God.

In the '80's my gut feeling was that airlines were crap. I hated spending time on planes. I thought we could create the kind of airline I'd like. So we got a secondhand 747 and gave it a go.

In the case of pilots, it is a little touch of madness that drive us to go beyond all known bounds. Any search into the unknown is an incomparable exploitation of oneself.

I realized that the future of aviation, to which I had devoted so much of my life, depended less on the perfection of aircraft than on preserving the epoch-evolved environment of life, and that this was true of all technological progress.

In soloing - as in other activities - it is far easier to start something than it is to finish it.

I put my bullets into the target as if I placed them there by hand.

I realized how important it was to know something about aviation, and it was something I was interested in, so I followed my brother's footsteps and obtained my pilot's license.

I really don't know one plane from the other. To me they are just marginal costs with wings.

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

I showed it is possible to fly a little bit like a bird.

I tell you, we're going to be busy for a minute.

It is as though we have grown wings, which thanks to Providence, we have learnt to control.

I think the first what would happen in the immediate wake of a hard Brexit is a lack of confidence in UK economy. Business is already telling me that they need a year or so to adjust to what is going to change in March 2019. Without a deal, tariffs would immediately kick in and we would need all the physical attributes of a customs border. And that is just the trade aspect. Imagine what would happen if, from one day to the next, we had no aviation agreement or no agreements for dealing with security across Europe.

It is a good thing to learn caution from the misfortunes of others.

It is not enough to just ride this earth. You have to aim higher, try to take off, even fly. It is our duty.

It is not a bad sport, but there's no place to go.

It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.

It is not the visions but the activity which makes you happy, and the joy and glory of the flier is the flight itself.

It is not unreasonable to look upon Concorde as a miracle.

It is well to moor your bark with two anchors.

It's a great day for TWA.

It occurred to me that if I did not handle the crash correctly, there would be no survivors.

It's all right if your automobile goes wrong while you are driving it. You can get out in the road and tinker with it. But if your airplane breaks down, you can't sit on a convenient cloud and tinker with that!

It's Bernoulli not Marconi that flies the airplane.

It's hard to replace the gray matter that is inherent in every human being. No computer can do it quite that well yet.

It's the most exciting thing you have ever done with your pants on!

It's like telling Mozart that there are too many notes in an opera. Which one do you want us to take out?

It's not a testosterone-driven industry any longer. Success is making money, not in the size of the airline.

It was my view that no kill was worth the life of a wingman. . . . Pilots in my unit who lost wingmen on this basis were prohibited from leading a [section]. The were made to fly as wingman, instead.

It takes nerves of steel to stay neurotic.

It was absolutely perfect. You can handle this large aircraft as you can handle a bicycle.

It was the first airplane . . . that could make money just by hauling passengers.

I want to be remembered for only one thing: my contribution to aviation.

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.