Quotes & Sayings About Aviation

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

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

High sprits they had: gravity they flouted. — Cecil Day-Lewis

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. — Ellen Ochoa

Aviation has struck a delicately balanced world, a world where stability was already giving way to the pressure of new dynamic forces, a world dominated by a mechanical, materialist,
Western European civilization. — Charles Lindbergh

This is my situation. I'm the kind of person who, for fun, writes articles called 'Aviation Club Soars into Orbit!' and an unhappy bully I've never heard of is sending out envoys. — Mike Birbiglia

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

The Hawaiian Islands were discovered by hardy Polynesian sailors, who crossed thousands of miles of open ocean in primitive canoes, braving violent storm-tossed seas for months at a time. My family and I arrived by modern commercial aviation, which was infinitely worse. — Dave Barry

Fly it like you stole it! — Bill Stein

Aviation seems almost a gift from heaven to those Western nations who were already the leaders of their era, strengthening their leadership, their confidence, their dominance over other peoples. — Charles Lindbergh

Aviation constituted a new and possibly decisive element in preventing or fighting a war, and I was in a unique position to observe European aviation - especially in its military aspects. — Charles Lindbergh

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

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

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

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

Flight is romance - not in the sense of sexual attraction, but as an experience that enriches life. — Stephen Coonts

Why shouldn't I fly from New York to Paris? I have more than four years of aviation behind me. I've barnstormed over half of the 48 states. I've flown my mail through the worst of nights. — Charles Lindbergh

What the history of aviation has brought in the 20th century should inspire us to be inventors and explorers ourselves in the new century. — Bertrand Piccard

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

Fly and you will catch the swallow. — James Howell

People who invest in aviation are the biggest suckers in the world. — David Neeleman

Dad worked his entire career as an aviation technician. Mom was a legal secretary who became a teacher. We lived a simple American life. — Brian Sandoval

We will provide aviation, construction, and logistics services first throughout Africa and then throughout the rest of the world. — Erik Prince

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

The fact is Qatar, Etihad, Emirates, Singapore, Garuda, all of the three Chinese airlines, Air New Zealand - the fact is that international aviation relies very much upon agreements between nation-states, and it is not an area in which you have free market operations. — Anthony Albanese

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who ... looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space ... on the infinite highway of the air. — Wilbur Wright

It was over in a blink of an eye, that moment when aviation stirred the modern imagination. Aviation was transformed from recklessness to routine in Lindbergh's lifetime. Today the riskiest part of air travel is the drive to the airport, and the airlines use a barrage of stimuli to protect passengers from ennui. — George Will

Some fear flutter because they do not understand it. And some fear it because they do. — Theodore Von Karman

That's what we're trained to do. — Chesley Sullenberger

Flight Reservation Systems decide whether or not you exist. If your information isn't in their database, then you simply don't get to go anywhere. — Arthur Miller

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

The helicopter appeared so reluctant to fly forward that we even considered turning the pilot's seat around and letting it fly backward. — Igor Sikorsky

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

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. — Jacqueline Auriol

Only one military organization can hold and gain ground in war-a ground army supported by tactical aviation with supply lines guarded by the navy. — Omar N. Bradley

Had I not become a professional golfer, I think I would have pursued some type of career in aviation. — Arnold Palmer

Checklists turn out ... to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains. — Atul Gawande

We don't really have any kind of regulatory structure at all. — Barack Obama

The cost of solving the Comet mystery must be reckoned neither in money nor in manpower. — Winston Churchill

Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps. — Ernest K. Gann

I didn't sleep that night. I cried. I wasn't frightened for myself; I was indignant; it was the wickedness of it that broke me. The war came to an end and I went home. I'd always been keen on mechanics, and if there was nothing doing in aviation, I'd intended to get into an automobile factory. I'd been wounded and had to take it easy for a while. Then they wanted me to go to work. I couldn't do the sort of work they wanted me to do. It seemed futile. I'd had a lot of time to think. I kept on asking myself what life was for. After all it was only by luck that I was alive; I wanted to make something of my life, but I didn't know what. I'd never thought much about God. I began to think about Him now. I couldn't understand why there was evil in the world. I knew I was very ignorant; I didn't know anyone I could turn to and I wanted to learn, so I began to read at haphazard. — W. Somerset Maugham

If a kid is really interested in wanting to have a career in aviation, he's actually learning and getting some of the [basics], not even just fringe. There are things in here that movie [Planes] about like the pulp of an engine, and it's the actual engine, the actual parts and pieces. So I felt like I got schooled as well. I learned a lot just being in there and doing that. — Dane Cook

People who aren't afraid to live aren't afraid to die. — Carol Fiore

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. — Ernest K. Gann

I've never known an industry that can get into people's blood the way aviation does. — Robert Six

Sports, entertainment and aviation are three of the most exciting professions in the world; you are dealing with the same magnitude. — John Travolta

Here above the farms and ranches of the Great Plains aviation lives up to the promise that inspired dreamers through the ages. Here you are truly separate from the earth, at least for a little while, removed from the cares and concerns that occupy you on the ground. This separation from the earth is more than symbolic, more than a physical removal-it has an emotional dimension as tangible as the wood, fabric, and steel that has transported you aloft. — Stephen Coonts

There is no excuse for an airplane unless it will fly fast! — Roscoe Turner

No it was not the novelty, and it was not the danger and the adventure (although these had their charm). It was certainly not a passing whim (if it had been the hard work would have dispelled it in a very short time!). I think there were three chief reasons for my choice of career: First, a real love for, and interest in aviation Secondly, a determination to earn my own money and to make my career a paying proposition. Thirdly, a conviction that aviation was a profession of the future and therefore had room to welcome its new followers. — Pauline Gower

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

Four semesters of organic chemistry made a pilot out of me. — Rick Perry

A lot of lies and misinformation has been put about by eco nuts on the back of a report by an idiot economist [Sir Nicholas Stern]. Environmental head bangers are talking nonsense when they claim that aviation is the fastest-growing source of carbon emissions. Coal-fired and oil-fired power stations are the biggest contributor of carbon but I have yet to hear any fearless eco warriors advocating nuclear power as they drive around in their SUVs to their next protest meeting. — Michael O'Leary

In the coming era of manned space exploration by the private sector, market forces will spur development and yield new, low-cost space technologies. If the history of private aviation is any guide, private development efforts will be safer, too. — Burt Rutan

In aviation they have auto pilot and color radar and a lot of other instrumentation that is a backup for pilots. It's really brought the incidents of plane crashes way down. Same thing ought to happen in the medical industry, I think. — Dennis Quaid

I cannot imaging anyone looking at the sky and denying God. — Abraham Lincoln

We're at a real time of transition here in terms of future aviation. What's going to be manned? What's going to be unmanned? There are those who see [the JSF] as the last manned fighter/bomber. And I'm one that's inclined to believe it-whether it's right or not. — Michael Mullen

You come to Washington, there's a rail bill, there's a highway bill, there's a aviation bill. But when you go home, there's an airport, there's a highway, there's a rail, there's transit. It all has to work together. — Anthony Foxx

On the stern quarterdeck, Leo rushed around like a madman, checking his gauges and wrestling levers. Most helmsmen would've been satisfied with a pilot's wheel of a tiller. Leo had also installed a keyboard, monitor, aviation controls from a Learjet, a dubstep soundboard, and motion-control sensors from a Nintendo Wii. He could turn the ship by pulling the throttle, fire weapons by sampling an album, or raise sails by shaking his Wii controllers really fast. Even by demigod standards, Leo was seriously ADHD. — Rick Riordan

I am going to have a cup of tea, like any good Englishman. — Brian Jones

There isn't a flight goes by when I don't stare out of the window and thank my stars for what I'm seeing and feeling. — Richard Branson

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

Height gives you the initiative. — Adolph Malan

Nothing said I had to crash. — Bob Hoover

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

He did it alone. We had a cast of a million. — Neil Armstrong

The Greatest Living Yankee is Whitey Ford, who came out of Aviation High School, which was then in Manhattan, and helped pitch the Yankees to victory in the 1950 World Series when he was 21. — George Vecsey

The leeway had been increased by the war period in which, by agreement, America concentrated on heavy bombers and transport aircraft while British effort was devoted to fighters and other combat types. — Pen And Sword Aviation

4. Radicalism of forms. If a new model once created meets with much success on account of its greater efficiency than its predecessor, it lends certain neighbouring forms a formal radicalism, which attempts to borrow from the appearance of the new form: for example, bronze tools that had reached the furthest development of their utility had a disastrous influence on stone tools, warping them toward an elegance that could only be attained in bronze. Today aviation has imposed its aerodynamic forms even on baby strollers and irons. This radicalism of forms is a result of the fact that people become bored when they do not find some unexpected element in the familiar. This radicalism might seem illogical, as the advocates of standardization believe, but we must not forget that discovery is only made possible by this need of humanity. — Tom McDonough

Aviation, this young modern giant, exemplifies the possible relationship of women and the creations of science. Although women have not taken full advantage of its use and benefits, air travel is as available to them as to men. — Amelia Earhart

Aviation - and space travel, in particular - have always been especially captivating. — Felix Baumgartner

Not all birds can fly. What separates the flyers from the walkers is the ability to take off. — Carl Sagan

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

I used my aviation contacts to open a travel agency. I used to book Caribbean flights. — Joseph Force Crater

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

My message going forward is that I want to remind everyone in the aviation industry - especially those who manage aviation companies and those who regulate aviation - that we owe it to our passengers to keep learning how to do it better. — Chesley Sullenberger

The plane as an object has been a huge effort to make. It is a sculpture, a technological invention, a piece of aviation culture. But really, it only exists to be inserted into a variety of landscapes, to be a catalyst, to offset them. — Aleksandra Mir

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

Never quit. Never give up. Fly it to the end. — Chuck Aaron

We actually are waiting for more people to be killed before we can do something that makes sense. We don't kill enough people in aviation to merit regulatory changes. — Deborah Hersman

I had no need of sails to drive me, nor oars nor wheels to push me, nor rails to give me a faster road. Air is what I wanted, that was all. Air surrounds me as water surrounds the submarine boat, and in it my propellers act like the screws of a steamer. That is how I solved the problem of aviation. That is what a balloon will never do, nor will any machine that is lighter than air. — Jules Verne

On February 8, 1928, known as Lindbergh day since it was the day he crossed the Atlantic Ocean the year before, Charles A. Lindbergh landed at the Campo Columbia airfield near Havana. Lindbergh had visited many countries in his plane, and he had the national flags of each country painted in the fuselage. Having flown from Haiti, on a Goodwill Tour of the Caribbean in his "Spirit of St. Louis," he had the Cuban flag painted on his a single-engine Ryan monoplane. It was the last country he visited before he donated the "Spirit of St. Louis" to the Smithsonian Institution, where it is still exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. — Hank Bracker

When diving to attack always leave a proportion of your formation above to act as top guard. — Adolph Malan

Artificial flight may be defined as that form of aviation in which a man flies at will in any direction by means of an apparatus attached to his body, the use of which requires personal skill. Artificial flight by a single individual is the proper beginning for all species of artificial flight, as the necessary conditions can most easily be fulfilled when man flies individually. — Otto Lilienthal

The E.U.-U.S. Open Aviation Area agreement therefore envisages the establishment of a broadly similar cooperation framework between the Commission and the Department of Transportation. — Neelie Kroes

Aviation is the branch of engineering that is least forgiving of mistakes. — Freeman Dyson

If you go back to the early days of aviation, the guys designing it built it, and then they got in it and flew it. I mean, who does that anymore? — Graham Hawkes

Go in quickly - Punch Hard - Get out! — Adolph Malan

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

There are two critical points in every aerial flight-its beginning and its end. — Alexander Graham Bell

Aviation is fine as a sport. But as an instrument of war, it is worthless. — Ferdinand Foch

The birds can fly, An' why can't I? — John Townsend Trowbridge

This is a Solo Flight, but I want aviation enthusiasts and adventurers everywhere to join me in the endeavour. — Steve Fossett

South Wales is a hub of aviation. — Bruce Dickinson

The fortress inspired a tremendous confidence. It was the only propeller driven aircraft I have flown that was completely viceless; there were no undesirable flight characteristics. The directional stability was excellent and, properly trimmed, the B-17 could be taken off, landed and banked without change of trim. — James Weldon Johnson

I always felt Jimmy was trapped in Hollywood. He felt it himself. He loved aviation so much and he wanted to be able to do more of that. He somehow just got stuck here. — Kim Novak

Seaboard Air Line, which was thought by numerous innocents to provide a foothold in aviation, was another favorite, although, in fact, it was a railroad. — John Kenneth Galbraith

Steve did not have a death wish. He had the exact opposite. His appetite for life was so strong, it outweighed all fear. So what if his choices shortened his life? His choices filled his life, and enriched the lives of those around him. — Richard Branson

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

Anyone who's not interested in model airplanes must have a screw loose somewhere. — Paul MacCready