Flight Deck Quotes & Sayings

An oceanic expanse of pre-dawn gray white below obscures a checkered grid of Saskatchewan, a snow plain nicked by the dark, unruly lines of woody swales. One might imagine that little is to be seen from a plane at night, but above the clouds the Milky Way is a dense, blazing arch. A full moon often lights the planet freshly, and patterns of human culture, artificially lit, are striking in ways not visible in daylight. One evening I saw the distinctive glows of cities around Delhi diffused like spiral galaxies in a continuous deck of stratus clouds far below us. In Algeria and on the Asian steppes, wind-whipped pennants of gas flared. The jungle burned in incandescent spots in Malaysia and Brazil. One clear evening at 20,000 feet over Manhattan, I could see, it seemed, every streetlight halfway to the end of Long Island. A summer lightning bolt unexpectedly revealed thousands of bright dots on the ink-black veld of the northern Transvaal: sheep. — Barry Lopez

My job during the EVAs, the spacewalks, is to act as the inside coordinator. I remain on the aft flight deck of the shuttle, and I act in a manner to help the gentlemen outside, my fellow crewmates, who are performing the EVA tasks. — Alan G. Poindexter

I don't think it's patriotic to put on a flight suit and prance around on the deck of an aircraft carrier looking for a photo op. We have a president of the United States who did not do his duty to take care of America. If you're patriotic, you do your duty. — Wesley Clark

The pilot is still the pilot, whether he is at a remote console or on the flight deck. With the potential for thousands of these unmanned aircraft in use years from now, the standards for pilot training need to be set high to ensure that those on the ground and other users of the airspace are not put in jeopardy. — Mark Rosenker

He didn't know what his measly five birds would be able to do, but they'd be ready to do it if he had to personally launch them into space with a rubber band tied across the flight deck. — Evan Currie

The image of Jupiter, with its ribbons of white cloud, its mottled bands of salmon pink, and the Great Red Spot staring out like a baleful eye, hung steady on the flight-deck projection screen. — Arthur C. Clarke

I slept just floating in the middle of the flight deck, the upper deck of the space shuttle. — Sally Ride

The plane had lost power in all three engines, dropped from thirty-four thousand feet to twelve thousand feet. Something like four miles. When the steep glide began, people rose, fell, collided, swam in their seats. Then the serious screaming and moaning began. Almost immediately a voice from the flight deck was heard on the intercom: "We're falling out of the sky! We're going down! We're a silver gleaming death machine!" This outburst struck the passengers as an all but total breakdown of authority, competence and command presence and it brought on a round of fresh and desperate wailing. — Don DeLillo

He noticed Sandys wide-eyed expression as she took in the flight deck, but there was no time to explain what all the controls were for. That, plus he didn't know what ask the controls were for. 'what are ask these controls for?' asked Sandy.
'no time to explain' said Hal quickly. — Simon Haynes

Donley loved the flight deck. It excited him. A rush. He had some misgivings about navy life, but he craved the action on deck. Few things compared to the raw power of an F-14 Tomcat in afterburner. The intense heat. The smell of jet fuel. It felt like a monster truck rally with him in the middle of the action. — Darren Sapp