Quotes & Sayings About Test Pilots

To test. Would weightlessness put them off their game? It did. The turtles moved "slowly and insecurely" and did not attack a piece of bait placed directly in front of them. Then again, the water in which they swam was repeatedly floating up out of the jar and forming an "ovoid cupola." Who could eat? Von Beckh quickly moved on from turtles to Argentinean pilots. Under the section heading "Experiments with Human Subjects" - a heading that, were I a doctor previously employed by Nazi Germany, I might have rephrased - von Beckh reports on the efforts of the pilots to mark X's inside small boxes during regular and weightless flight. During weightlessness, many of the letters strayed from the boxes, indicating that pilots might experience difficulties maneuvering their planes and doing crossword puzzles during air battles. The following year, von Beckh was recruited by the Aeromedical Research Laboratory at Holloman Air Force — Mary Roach

It was a unique childhood, to say the least. My father was born in Patiala to refugee parents and was a part of the Indian Air Force. The talented few amongst the Air Force pilots are made test pilots. Test pilots are best suited to look at the space programme as they are trained to expect the unexpected. — Kapil Sharma

Later, after flying in the Navy for four or five years, spending some time on an aircraft carrier, I applied to and was accepted in a program where I went to graduate school first and then to the Naval Test Pilots School. — Mark Kelly

We were young, we were pilots, and we were hungry to test the new technology of 'space machines.' And we all wanted to be first. — Gherman Titov

During my career as an airline pilot, I had the opportunity to be a check and training captain. Part of this job was to train and test experienced pilots to ensure that they had the necessary knowledge and skills to safely and efficiently operate those magnificent big jets. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

We were flying on a winged vehicle that would do reentry different than we had ever done before. So all of those were firsts. Test pilots truly love firsts. — Robert Crippen

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation. — Igor Sikorsky

Astronauts working for the government will always need to be either pilots or mission specialists. Those who want to be pilots should have military experience - ideally, a test pilot background. — Buzz Aldrin

The happily married man with a large family is the test pilot for me. — Nevil Shute

And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots, that was an epiphany that just came like a stroke of lightning. — Story Musgrave

The pilots I did test for, I was the only black actor testing against white actors for parts that were written white. — J. August Richards

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. — Robin Olds

NO ONE starts a trip thinking that they might crash. Even though there is always a possibility, no one in their right mind ever begins a journey thinking that it's going to end in failure. There are only two types of people in the world who are aware and plan on crashing before they ever start : test pilots and teenage boys. — John Goode

Then there was the challenge to keep doing better and better, to fly the best test flight that anybody had ever flown. That led to my being recognized as one of the more experienced test pilots, and that led to the astronaut business. — Alan Shepard

Test pilots have a litmus test for evaluating problems. When something goes wrong, they ask, "Is this thing still flying?" If the answer is yes, then there's no immediate danger, no need to overreact. — Alan Bean

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

I can still remember them wheeling the black and white TV sets into our classroom at school so we could watch the men landing on the Moon, and that obviously had a huge impact. I later found out those people flying Apollo were ex-military test pilots, so I decided to join the Air Force and become a test pilot. — David Mackay