Quotes & Sayings About Aviation And Flying

And like no other sculpture in the history of art, the dead engine and dead airframe come to life at the touch of a human hand, and join their life with the pilot's own. — Richard Bach

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

For most of the time carrier aviation is more challenging than flying in a spacecraft — Jim Lovell

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. — Wilbur Wright

I ask people who don't fly, "How can you not fly when you live in a time in history when you can fly?" — William Langewiesche

The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking. — Jonathan Swift

We lived in and out of our flight bags, they being our true and only home. Thus, if we were not actually flying or sleeping, we were often lonely and at a loss to occupy ourselves. — Ernest K. Gann

Flight is the only truly new sensation than men have achieved in modern history. — James Dickey

When asked by someone how much money flying takes:
Why, all of it! — Gordon Baxter

I'm not bound to be in aviation at all. I'm here only because I love the sky and flying more than anything else on earth. Of course there's danger; but a certain amount of danger is essential to the quality of life. I don't believe in taking foolish chances' but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chance at all. — Charles Lindbergh

Flying without feathers is not easy; my wings have no feathers. — Plautus

I have always considered imaginative truth to be more profound, more loaded with significance, than every day reality ... Everything we dream about, and by that I mean everything we desire, is true (the myth of Icarus came before aviation, and if Ader or Bleriot started flying it is because all men have dreamed of flight). There is nothing truer than myth ... Reality does not have to be: it is simply what is. — Eugene Ionesco

In referance to flying through thunderstorms; "A pilot may earn his full pay for that year in less than two minutes. At the time of incident he would gladly return the entire amount for the privilege of being elsewhere. — Ernest K. Gann

Flying is like sex - I've never had all I wanted but occasionally I've had all I could stand. — Stephen Coonts

Never fly anything that doesn't have the paint worn off the rudder Pedals. — Bill Harry

Flying, for some reason, has never been my favorite thing, but after taking some aviation classes and reading about it and learning about it ... They've been doing this for over a hundred years, they've been to the moon and back; they kind of have a good system going here. — Michael Mosley

It was that quality that led me into aviation in the first place - it was a love of the air and sky and flying, the lure of adventure, the appreciation of beauty. It lay beyond the descriptive words of man - where immortality is touched through danger, where life meets death on equal plane; where man is more than man, and existence both supreme and valueless at the same instant. — Charles Lindbergh

Feelings came alive in Vicki for which the earth and sea had never taught her names. — Helen Wells

...I stand looking at the aircraft, trying in vain to remember all the theoretical lore which i was supposed to have absorbed in school. The effort is discouraging. — Ernest K. Gann

Aviation is poetry ... It's the finest kind of moving around, you know, just as poetry is the finest way of using words. — Jessie Redmon Fauset

I made about fifty-four dollars a week and spent it on two flying lessons every week at the age of sixteen and was able to get a license then pretty early and knew that that's what I wanted to do, some kind of a career in aviation. I did know about space flight, but at that point, it was still pretty far out there. — Kevin A. Ford

Instrument flying is an unnatural act probably punishable by God. — Gordon Baxter

Syd's strafing run at Florennes had been a feat of strafing skill. His cine-gun footage of the radar van was perfect. It showed radar operators diving out both sides of the brown box on wheels. Instead of congratulations, the Station Commander awarded him a $25 fine and a formal reproof. — R.J. Childerhose

Glenn Hammond Curtiss was a bicycle enthusiast before he started building motorcycles. Although he only attended grammar school to the 8th grade, his interests motivated him to move on to greater things. In 1904, as a self-taught engineer, he began to manufacture engines for airships. During this time, Curtiss became known for having won a number of international air races and for making the first long-distance flight in the United States. On September 30, 1907, Curtiss was invited to join a non-profit pioneering research program named the "Aerial Experimental Association," founded under the leadership of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, to develop flying machines. The organization was established having a fixed time period, which ended in March of 1909. During this time, the members produced several different aircraft in a cooperative, rather than a competitive, spirit. — Hank Bracker

I was sold on flying as soon as I had a taste for it. — John Glenn

At least when I get on the Boston train I have a good chance of landing in the South Station
And not in that part of the daily press which is reserved for victims of aviation. — Ogden Nash

In the early 1930s, flying from England to Australia was the longest flight in the world. It was considered extremely dangerous and hazardous, pushing pilots to the limits of mechanical skills and human endurance. Aviation was young. — Mary Garden

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

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) — Lawrence Hargrave

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.] — Auguste Piccard

Nobody who gets too damned relaxed builds up much flying time. — Ernest K. Gann

I finally overcame my phobia, and now I approach flying with a sort of studied boredom - a learned habit, thanks to my learn-to-fly-calmly training - but like all former flying phobics, I retain a weird and feverish fascination with aviation news, especially bad news. — Susan Orlean

Cloud-flying requires practice, even if you have every modern instrument, and unless you keep calm and collected you will get into trouble after you have been inside a really thick one for a few minutes. In the very early days of aviation, 1912 to be correct, I emerged from a cloud upside down, much to my discomfort, as I didn't know how to get right way up again. I found out somehow, or I wouldn't be writing this. — Charles Rumney Samson