Top 398 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Aviators

Isn't it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most?

Women, like men, should try to do the impossible. And when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.

Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.

If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.

My dear Excellency! I have not gone to war to collect cheese and eggs, but for another purpose.

There's simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety.

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.

Electronic Accounting Systems processed my little payrolls like one big payroll. I did the selling, and the people I hired did most of the operations.

I watched the moon landing as a boy, and I thought that was the most exciting thing ever, going into space, orbiting Earth and exploring other planets. That looked fantastic.

Always aim at perfection for only then will you achieve excellence

The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind ahead even more than teamwork.

The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't.

I have found adventure in flying, in world travel, in business, and even close at hand... Adventure is a state of mind - and spirit.

The good thing about flying solo is it's never boring.

To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything.

It became the middle finger I couldn’t raise in PR photographs. The mustache became my silent last word in the verbal battles I was losing with higher headquarters on rules, targets, and fighting the war.

The air is the only place free from prejudice.

I was annoyed from the start by the attitude of doubt by the spectators that I would never really make the flight. This attitude made me more determined than ever to succeed.

Had I been a man I might have explored the Poles or climbed Mount Everest, but as it was my spirit found outlet in the air. . . .

Handicaps are mindsets. Whatever it is that stands in the way of achieving something, that's when it's a handicap. I prefer to see them as obstacles or challenges. This is how I've been my whole life. I don't know any different. I just live my life through my feet.

Your story is the greatest legacy that you will leave to your friends.It's the longest-lasting legacy you will leave to your heirs.

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

Better to die voluntarily crashing than to have the enemy send you down in flames.

Now my playmates never failed to wink and smile mockingly at me when one of them called 'Man flies!' for at the word I would always lift my finger very high, as a sign of absolute conviction; and I refused with energy to pay the forfeit. The more they laughed at me, the happier I was, hoping that some day the laugh would be on my side.

Flying makes me feel like a sex maniac in a whorehouse with a stack of $20 bills.

The beauty of the air, from the air... You haven't seen Australia unless you see it from the air. The coastline, the colours of the inland. The claypans, the forests. It's just all so beautiful. You'd never see that from the road. People climb mountains to see these things. You see that every time you take off.

If you have flown, perhaps you can understand the love a pilot develops for flight. It is much the same emotion a man feels for a woman, or a wife for her husband.

The way I see it, you can either work for a living or you can fly airplanes. Me, I'd rather fly.

Listen, son. You and I are professionals. If the manager says sacrifice, we lay down a bunt and let somebody else hit the homeruns.

A lot of people think that all the things that could be invented have been invented. But we are just on the frontier of discovery and invention. It's a very exciting time.

Now shut the engines off. Come down and flatten out, feel the long float, and at the given moment pull the stick right home. She's down. Now taxi in. Switch off. It's over - but not quite, for the port engine, just as if it knew, as if reluctant at the last to let me go, kicked, kicked, and kicked again, as overheated engines will, then backfired with an angry snorting: Fool! The best is over ...But I did not hear.

It wasn't the reward that mattered or the recognition you might harvest. It was your depth of commitment, your quality of service, the product of your devotion - these were the things that counted in life. When you gave purely, the honor in giving, and that was honor enough.

A bright light filled the plane. The first shock-wave hit us. We were eleven and a half miles slant range from the atomic explosion but the whole airplane cracked and crinkled from the blast... We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud... mushrooming, terrible and incredibly tall.

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

Aviation is a dynamic profession. The rate of obsolescence of equipment is high and new aircraft have to be placed in inventory periodically in order to stay abreast of the requirements of modern war.

We're at 103,000 feet. Looking out over a very beautiful, beautiful world . . . a hostile sky. As you look up the sky looks beautiful but hostile. As you sit here you realize that Man will never conquer space. He will learn to live with it, but he will never conquer it. Can see for over 400 miles. Beneath me I can see the clouds. . . . They are beautiful . . . looking through my mirror the sky is absolutely black. Void of anything. . . . I can see the beautiful blue of the sky and above that it goes into a deep, deep, dark, indescribable blue which no artist can ever duplicate. It's fantastic.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, Where never the lark, nor 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.

The route to the target is more important than the target. We are going to go for the target, but we enjoy the route as well.

And what have we now in Germany? A land of bankers and car-makers. Even our great army has gone soft. Soldiers wear beards and question orders. I am not ashamed to say I believed in National Socialism. I still wear the Iron Cross with diamonds Hitler gave me. But today in all Germany you can't find a single person who voted Adolf Hitler into power. Many Germans feel guilty about the war. But they don't explain the real guilt we share - That we lost.

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.

Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk.

Any girl who has flown at all grows used to the prejudice of most men pilots who will trot out any number of reasons why women can't possibly be good pilots. . . . The only way to show the disbelievers, the snickering hangar pilots, is to show them.

I discovered early that the hardest thing to overcome is not a physical disability but the mental condition which it induces. The world, I found, has a way of taking a man pretty much at his own rating. If he permits his loss to make him embarrassed and apologetic, he will draw embarrassment from others. But if he gains his own respect, the respect of those around him comes easily.

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

When the weight of the paper equals the weight of the airplane, only then you can go flying.

I would never want to discourage anyone from listening to the news, heaven forfend. But I thought, you know, when I'm recommending music to people I like to recommend stuff that I think they'll like.

Only when I saw the Earth from space, in all its ineffable beauty and fragility, did I realize that humankind's most urgent task is to cherish and preserve it for future generations.

Flying is the best possible thing for women.

Other factors affecting the '109 as a combat plane include the small cramped cockpit. This is quite a tiring working environment, although the view out (in flight) is better than you might expect; the profuseion of canopy struts is not particularly a problem. In addition to the above the small cockpit makes you feel more a part of the aeroplane.

Every flyer who ventures across oceans to distant lands is a potential explorer; in his or her breast burns the same fire that urged adventurers of old to set forth in their sailing-ships for foreign lands.

I was a pilot flying an airplane and it just so happened that, where I was flying, made what I was doing spying.

To be a great pilot you have to make a pact with the devil, but don't let him swallow you up.

What you want to do, and what you can do, is limited only by what you can dream.

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

There is a world-old controversy that crops up whenever women attempt to enter a new field. Is a woman fit for that work? It would seem that a woman's success in any particular field would prove her fitness for that work, without regard to theories to the contrary.

I didn't know a lot about Amelia before I started flying. And as a woman and a pilot, I should have known more.

Great pilots are made not born. . . . A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end result is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience.

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.

Lost are only those who abandon themselves.

As long as I look into the muzzles, nothing can happen to me. Only if he pulls lead am I in danger.