Top 398 Quotes & Sayings by Famous Aviators - Page 2

The first company to produce a certified two seat electric aircraft with a 1.5 hour range will dominate the aviation training market.

First Europe, and then the globe, will be linked by flight, and nations so knit together that they will grow to be next-door neighbors. . . . What railways have done for nations, airways will do for the world.

Never quit. Never give up. Fly it to the end.

The only time an aircraft has too much fuel on board is when it is on fire.

Death is the handmaiden of the pilot. Sometimes it comes by accident, sometimes by an act of God.

It wasn't that the X-1 would kill you, it was the systems in the X-1 that would kill you.

No one can realize how substantial the air is, until he feels its supporting power beneath him. It inspires confidence at once.

Medical professionals are as skilled and as dedicated as any, but they operate within a fragmented system that has not progressed as far as we have in aviation.

Nothing said I had to crash.

Flying solo, you have a fair workload. I'm not only flying the balloon but doing the navigation, communications, repairing the burners, taking care of the equipment.

You've never lived till you've flown!

All flight is based upon producing air pressure, all flight energy consists in overcoming air pressure.

Takeoff isn't scary at all - just the landing. Once you're in the air, you feel that sense of freedom of no limits.

The country will some day pay for the stupidities of those who were in the majority on this commission. They know as much about the future of aviation as they do about the sign writing of the Aztecs.

People often assume I assume I am a thrill seeker, but I am not. I do not enjoy roller coasters, and you won't find me bungee-jumping. ... It is a disadvantage that my pursuits are inherently dangerous. A large part of my effort is to reduce risk.

It would be right to state that, with the successful flight of the XR-4 in the summer of 1942, the helicopter became a reality in the United States.

I have a varied collection of music on my phone. I like a lot of the popular music that has a really energetic beat to it, as well as some classical things.

What made me this way was watching my father go through bad employment experiences. When I was 17, and he was 65, I saw him go through the experiences working for a boss that was rude and obnoxious. I swore if I was ever had the capacity to run a company that I would do it in a different way.

New York state and federal election laws allow us to make unlimited expenditures on behalf of or in opposition to candidates so long as we do not coordinate those expenditures.

Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, long-standing American concepts of 'fair play' must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services and must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.

I'm proud that I was able to start with nothing, plan it and have it work as perfectly as it did... I sleep clearly every night.

Our concerns sink into insignificance when compared with the eternal value of human personality - a potential child of God which is destined to triumph over lie, pain, and death. No one can take this sublime meaning of life away from us, and this is the one thing that matters.

Not long after I got my test pilot qualification, I realised there was no manned space flight programme in the U.K., and there was unlikely to be one.

It is a pity that my collection of trophies contains not a single Russian.

One can get a proper insight into the practice of flying only by actual flying experiments. . . . The manner in which we have to meet the irregularities of the wind, when soaring in the air, can only be learnt by being in the air itself. . . . The only way which leads us to a quick development in human flight is a systematic and energetic practice in actual flying experiments.

I pick projects according to how fascinating they are to me, and it has resulted in a broad reach. My records are actually in five different sports: balloons, airplanes, airships, gliders, and sailboats.

I wanted to go higher than Rockefeller Center, which was being erected across the street from Saks Fifth Avenue and was going to cut off my view of the sky. . . . Flying got into my soul instantly but the answer as to why must be found somewhere back in the mystic maze of my birth and childhood and the circumstances of my earlier life. Whatever I am is elemental and the beginnings of it all have their roots in Sawdust Road. I might have been born in a hovel, but I determined to travel with the wind and stars.

Flying the Feathered Edge captures my life story in an authentic and accurate way. I don't know how it could have been done any better.

Every day we wake up, we have an opportunity to do some good, but there's so much bad that you have to navigate to get to the good.

This book is dedicated to all those who fell by the airside, for nothing is wasted, and every apparent failure is but a challenge to others.

If you want excellence, you must aim at perfection. It makes you go into detail that you can avoid. It takes a lot of energy out of you but that's the only way you finally actually achieve excellence. So in that sense, being finicky is essential.

I could never be so lucky again

There is so much that must be done in a civilized barbarism like war.

There's a lot of Hollywood bullshit about flying. I mean, look at the movies about test pilots or fighter pilots who face imminent death. The controls are jammed or something really important has fallen off the plane, and these guys are talking like magpies; their lives are flashing past their eyes, and they're flailing around in the cockpit. It just doesn't happen. You don't have time to talk. You're too damn busy trying to get out of the problem you're in to talk or ricochet around the cockpit. Or think about what happened the night after your senior prom.

And to live without risk for me would have been tantamount to death.

Supersonic airplanes have carried men at more than 2,000 miles per hour and there are reasons to believe that this speed will be doubled by 1960 or so.

It is better that one's customers come to one's shop than to have to look for them abroad.

It's amazing what you can learn to get used to.

Money lost-nothing lost, Health lost-little lost, Spirit lost-everything lost.

The four cornerstones of character on which the structure of this nation was built are: Initiative, Imagination, Individuality and Independence.

It comes with faith, for with complete faith there is no fear of what faces you in life or death.

I've cheated the Grim Reaper more times than anyone I know.

Anybody who doesn't have fear is an idiot. It's just that you must make the fear work for you. Hell when somebody shot at me, it made me madder than hell, and all I wanted to do was shoot back.

In the case of an airplane, speed is determined by the outcome of the conflict between thrust of the power and drag of the plane. So it also is with humans.

It struck me that most businesses have less than 100 employees, but most payroll services were going after bigger companies.

Everyone asks me 'how it feels to fly.' It feels like riding in a high powered automobile, minus bumping over the rough roads, continually signaling to clear the way and keeping a watchful on the speedometer to see that you do not exceed the speed limit and provoke the wrath of the bicycle policeman or the covetous constable.

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

We realized what a spot we were in. We had to deliver the goods, or else there wouldn't ever be another chance for women pilots in any part of the service.

The emergencies you train for almost never happen. It's the one you can't train for that kills you.

Mountain climbing was my original sport ... and I've never tired from the satisfaction of getting to the top of a mountain.

From the day I got out of school, I was looking for an idea.

Whenever the weather licks the pilot instead of him lickin' the weather, he's finished. The first time makes the second time easier. And the first thing he knows, he's in trouble when the weather is perfect.

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace.

My wife Lorrie actually looked in the dictionary to see what the definition was of heroism because it had been used so much. She found at least one definition is someone who chooses to put themselves at risk to save another.

If I can create the minimum of my plans and desires, there shall be no regrets.

Just try to make the world a better place for your having been here.

I am not a very timid type. It's very important to some people, but not to me. I have a simple philosophy: worry about those things you can fix. It you can't fix it, don't worry about it; accept it and do the best you can.

Flying is one of the safest jobs in the Army as long as you don't drop out. If you do drop out, you are a dead man, and dropping out means, usually, that you have made a mistake or let go of your grip.

The men flyers have given out the impression that aeroplaning is very perilous work, something that an ordinary mortal should not dream of attempting. But when I saw how easily the man flyers manipulated their machines I said I could fly.

Uncommon thinkers reuse what common thinkers refuse