Best 283 quotes in «aviation quotes» category

When over the enemy's lines never forget your own line of retreat.

When wild the head-wind beat, Thy sovereign Will commanding Bring them who dare to fly To a safe landing.

When you get to know me, I don't despair - I just get up, clean up, and start again.

Which is now a more hopeful statement than Swift intended it to be.

Where did you get your eyes so blue? Out of the sky as I came through.

Without feathers it isn't easy to fly: my wings have got no feathers. [Lat., Sine pennis volare hau facilest: meae alae pennas non habent.] [Alt., Flying without feathers is not easy; my wings have no feathers.]

You are what you think you are.

You cannot get one nickel for commercial flying.

You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.

You know they invented wheelbarrows to teach FAA inspectors to walk on their hind legs.

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

You're on your way, Jose!

You love a lot of things if you live around them, but there isn't any woman and there isn't any horse, nor any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane.

You've got to treat people as equals, and make them feel like it's their company. I don't know if I've had any impact or helped persuade Frank [to sell Eastern]. But, I can tell you, there were many discussions on the subject.

You've got to expect things are going to go wrong. And we always need to prepare ourselves for handling the unexpected.

By the death of Mr. O. Chanute the world has lost one whose labors had to an unusual degree influenced the course of human progress. If he had not lived the entire history of progress in flying would have been other than it has been.

As to rocket ships flying between America and Europe, I believe it is worth seriously trying for. Thirty years ago persons who were developing flying were laughed at as mad, and that scorn hindered aviation. Now we heap similar ridicule upon stratoplane or rocket ships for trans-Atlantic flights. (1933) [Predicting high-altitude jet aircraft for routine long-distance travel.]

High Flight 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.... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace. Where never lark, or even eagle flew — And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, - Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Mine is a quest, for a mouthful of skies. !

It is the professional pilot's bounden duty to know the idiosyncrasies of each type (of airplane), for he must spend a large proportion of his active career exploiting its qualities and compensating for its faults. These secrets cannot be discovered in a ground school.

So there we were, in the middle of the night, on our hands and knees with scrub brushes, steel wool, sponges, scouring powder and buckets of water making the old shop look spic and span. We secured from the task at 0400. I should have hit the rack but instead went topside and out to the canoe, the sacred spot where Lieutenant Goldberg and I had sat together contemplating the why's of life. I was saying farewell in my own way. I wanted to experience the Oriskany for the last time on the high seas. It was still dark – the dark that comes just before dawn. The waning moon, merely a fluorescent nail clipping, hung near the horizon. The night air was crisp; the sky a deep, cold black with pinpoints of stars shimmering through the earth’s canopy. Above me was the endless universe; below me, the deep mystical sea. Large undulating swells gently rocked the ship like a babe in its mother’s arms. Mother Ocean. Father Sky. I meditated upon this new life that I am now obliged to live. I thought about youth. I thought about old age. Apparently bad memories fade away with time and only the moments of goodness and joy remain. Those who are nearing the end of their lives revel in the bliss of yesterday but we the young have this day and tomorrow to contend with. Today, we see the world naked, exposed before our eyes. We see hatred, misery and pain. We find it difficult to live for today. Only the desires for tomorrow’s better world can alleviate the suffering that is today. Only tomorrow can offer us hope that glimmering moments will again materialize. So we continue to exist for a dream, a wish that tomorrow we can say: “This is a day worth living.” Excerpted from God, Bombs & Viet Nam: Based on the Diary of...

Santiago de Cuba has the Antonio Maceo Airport (MUCU/SCU), which was home to the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces. Shown in the photo is a Cuban Mig 21 inside the VT-45 hanger. Santiago de Cuba had 12 of these Russian built fighters situated at the San Antonio de los Baños Airfield in Cuba. Now the airport is essentially a turboprop hub, however it can also accommodate mid-sized jet aircraft. There are about twenty international flights each week, but most arrivals are by domestic airlines. The eastern location and the international status of MUCU/SCU has spurred the interest of foreign airlines as a promising future destination. All in all, Cuba now has ten international airports, capable of serving long-range commercial flights. Follow the daily blogs by Captain Hank Bracker posted exclusively on Facebook, Goodreads & Captain Hank Bracker’s Webpage. He also has frequent Tweets and weekend commentaries headed “From the Bridge.” His dual award winning book “The Exciting Story of Cuba” is available from Amazon.com and other leading book vendors. Soon to come are his books “Seawater One” & “Surpressed I Rise (Revised Edition).

The only characteristic all airliners share is that upon proper urging they are normally capable of leaving the earth's surface.

Where the world saw 'nothing'; And called it 'empty'.. I saw an Ocean of Air; Filled with opportunities...!

This is our foxhole, and in foxholes, sometimes faith is all you've got.

Welcome to my Goodreads author page! Thank you for stopping by. My new thriller, THE DEVIL DRAGON PILOT is now available. If you are new to where aviation meets espionage, this is an excellent place to begin. I have also created a website, complete with a Group Readers Guide and Photos at ColbyAviationThrillers and hope you will stop in. While visiting, you can sign up for my newsletter and receive a special Devil Dragon gift. Thank you for all of your support!

When I worked on the 13,796 feet very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea we were advised to only use the medical oxygen after the daily headaches appeared and that just 15 minutes use was all that was needed to clear up the headaches for a while before we would need it again. We were not advised to use medical oxygen continuously as the Federal Aviation Regulations advises pilots to do. We were not advised to use pulse oximeters to monitor our blood oxygen levels or that the company medical oxygen should have been routinely administered only with our doctors prescription.

You are supposed to know how to fly or you would not be here. You will now learn to fly all over again. Our way. I have examined your logbooks. They contain some interesting and clever lies. If you are lucky and work a good solid eighteen hours a day in this school, it is barely possible that a few of you may succeed in actually going out on the line-that is, if the company is still in such desperate need of pilots that it will hire anybody who wears his wings in his lapel and walks slowly past the front door.

Workers must root out the idea that by keeping the results of their labors to themselves a fortune will be assured to them. Patent fees are so much wasted money. The flying machine of the future will not be born fully fledged and capable of a flight for 1,000 miles or so. Like everything else it must be evolved gradually. The first difficulty is to get a thing that will fly at all. When this is made, a full description should be published as an aid to others. Excellence of design and workmanship will always defy competition. (1894)

A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements.

Aggressiveness was a fundamental to success in airtoair combat and if you ever caught a fighter pilot in a defensive mood you had him licked before you started shooting.

Air Canada. That's a good name for a Canadian airline.

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

Air power is indivisible. If you split it up into compartments, you merely pull it to pieces and destroy its greatest asset - its flexibility.

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

All attempts at artificial aviation are not only dangerous to human life, but foredoomed to failure from the engineering standpoint.

All the calculations show it can't work. There's only one thing to do: make it work.

All agreed that the sensation of coasting on the air was delightful.

Always keep your eye on your opponent, and never let yourself be deceived by ruses.

Always carry through an attack when you have started it.

Always keep an 'out' in your hip pocket.

Always keep a sharp lookout. "Keep your finger out"!

America, the land of the free, is turning itself into the land of the free ride. [U.S. airlines] are operating in protected markets. They are hoovering up public funds and they still can't make a profit.

Always turn and face the attack.

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.

An aircraft which is used by wealthy people on their expense accounts, whose fares are subsidized by much poorer taxpayers.

A man who is not afraid of the sea will soon be drowned, for he will be going out on a day when he shouldn't.

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

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

And let's get one thing straight. There's a big difference between a pilot and an aviator. One is a technician; the other is an artist in love with flight.