Pilots Quotes - Page 18

• So the crew fly on with no thought that they are in motion. Like night over the sea, they are very far from the earth, from towns, from trees. The clock ticks on. The dials, the radio lamps, the various hands and needles go though their invisible alchemy. . . . and when the hour is at hand the pilot may glue his forehead to the window with perfect assurance. Out of oblivion the gold has been smelted: there it gleams in the lights of the airport.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Night, Airports, Light

  7 Copy quote

• There is a thrill of vulnerability at all airshows. There is no way of making everything completely safe. When the machines are being thrashed to capacity and the pilots are flying at their limits to dazzle, things are bound to go wrong sometimes. There have been some historic disasters, but the danger is a part of the attraction.

  Alex James

  Flying, Machines, Thrill

  6 Copy quote

• For pilots sometimes see behind the curtain, behind the veil of gossamer velvet, and find the truth behind man, the force behind a universe.

  Richard Bach

  Men, Velvet, Veils

  Richard Bach (2003). “Flying: The Aviation Trilogy”, p.161, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The job has its grandeurs, yes. There is the exultation of arriving safely after a storm, the joy of gliding down out of the darkness of night or tempest toward a sun-drenched Alicante or Santiago; there is the swelling sense of returning to repossess one's place in life, in the miraculous garden of earth, where are trees and women and, down by the harbor, friendly little bars. When he has throttled his engine and is banking into the airport, leaving the somber cloud masses behind, what pilot does not break into song?

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Song, Jobs, Night

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Littles, Aviation, Madness

  14 Copy quote

• During my long investigation of these strange objects, I have seen many reports verified by Air Force Intelligence, detailed accounts by Air Force pilots, radar operators, and other trained observers proving the UFOs are high-speed craft superior to anything built on Earth.

  Donald Keyhoe

  Air, Long, Crafts

  18 Copy quote

• I don't watch the show - only bits and pieces of all of them. The only one I sat through was the pilot.

  Calista Flockhart

  Watches, Pieces, Sat

  4 Copy quote

• I had a flight trainer who is one of the biggest and most famous helicopter pilots the world.

  Izabella Scorupco

  World, Flight, Helicopters

  34 Copy quote

• I remember when I did the pilot, and I though no network is going to want to do this. How could that happen? A half Chinese guy walking the old west that doesn't fire one gun and never gets on a horse?

  David Carradine

  Horse, Gun, Fire

  52 Copy quote

• Pilots track their lives by the number of hours in the air, as if any other kind of time isn't worth noting.

  Michael Parfit

  Numbers, Air, Track

  9 Copy quote

• Peace is our inner wealth. This inner wealth we can bring to the fore only when we expect nothing from the outer world and everything from the Supreme Pilot within us, at God's Choice Hour

  Sri Chinmoy

  Peace, Choices, World

  Sri Chinmoy (2014). “The Oneness of the Eastern Heart and the Western Mind: An Introduction to Eastern Philosophy and Yoga”, p.835, Aum Publications

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The decision to rely heavily on high-altitude air power, target urban infrastructure and repeatedly attack heavily populated towns and villages has reflected a deliberate trade-off of the lives of American pilots and soldiers, not with those of their declared Taliban enemies, but with Afghan civilians... There will be no official two-minute silence for the Afghan dead, no newspaper obituaries or memorial services attended by the prime minister, as there were for the victims of the twin towers.

  Seumas Milne

  Air, Two, Silence

  " The innocent dead in a coward's war" by Seumas Milne, www.theguardian.com. December 19, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Each test pilot I know considers him, or herself, now that there are women, to be the very best. It's very demeaning to step down the ladder once in a while

  Wally Schirra

  Ladders, Tests, Steps

  85 Copy quote

• When a test pilot comes off a flight, there is typically another pilot who is going to take it up, and he believes in the debriefing. You don't keep something to yourself

  Wally Schirra

  Believe, Tests, Flight

  8 Copy quote

• A top World War II ace once said that fighter pilots fall into two broad categories: those who go out to kill and those who, secretly, desperately, know they are going to get killed-the hunters and the hunted.

  Nathan Farragut Twining

  War, Fall, Two

  4 Copy quote

• It was my view that no kill was worth the life of a wingman. . . . Pilots in my unit who lost wingmen on this basis were prohibited from leading a [section]. The were made to fly as wingman, instead.

  Erich Hartmann

  Views, Aviation, Lost

  41 Copy quote

• And I have yet to find one single individual who has attained conspicuous success in bringing down enemy aeroplanes who can be said to be spoiled either by his successes or by the generous congratulations of his comrades. If he were capable of being spoiled he would not have had the character to have won continuous victories, for the smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Self-distrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.

  Eddie Rickenbacker

  Congratulations, Character, Fighting

  Eddie Rickenbacker (2012). “Fighting the Flying Circus”, p.48, Tales End Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The duty of the fighter pilot is to patrol his area of the sky, and shoot down any enemy fighters in that area. Anything else is rubbish.

  Manfred von Richthofen

  Sky, Enemy, Rubbish

  112 Copy quote

• . . . my pilot pointed to his left front and above, and looking in the direction he pointed, I saw a long dark brown form fairly streaking across the sky. We could see that it was a German machine, and when it got above and behind our middle machine, it dived on it for all the world like a huge hawk on a hapless sparrow.

  James McCudden

  Dark, Sky, Long

  James McCudden (2009). “Flying Fury: Five Years in the Royal Flying Corps”, p.85, Casemate / Greenhill

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Their element is to attack, to track, to hunt, and to destroy the enemy. Only in this way can the eager and skillful fighter pilot display his ability. Tie him to a narrow and confined task, rob him of his initiative, and you take away from him the best and most valuable qualities he posses: aggressive spirit, joy of action, and the passion of the hunter.

  Adolf Galland

  Passion, Ties, Track

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• Aggressiveness was a fundamental to success in airtoair combat and if you ever caught a fighter pilot in a defensive mood you had him licked before you started shooting.

  David McCampbell

  Fundamentals, Shooting, Aviation

  54 Copy quote

• The smallest amount of vanity is fatal in aeroplane fighting. Selfdistrust rather is the quality to which many a pilot owes his protracted existence.

  Eddie Rickenbacker

  Fighting, Vanity, Quality

  Eddie Rickenbacker (2012). “Fighting the Flying Circus”, p.48, Tales End Press

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The air battle is not necessarily won at the time of the battle. The winner may have been determined by the amount of time, energy, thought and training an individual has previously accomplished in an effort to increase his ability as a fighter pilot.

  Pappy Boyington

  Air, Effort, Training

  56 Copy quote

• The experienced fighting pilot does not take unnecessary risks. His business in to shoot down enemy planes, not to get shot down. His trained hand and eye and judgment are as much a part of his armament as his machinegun, and a fiftyfifty chance is the worst he will take or should take except where the show is of the kind that . . . justifies the sacrifice of plane or pilot.

  Eddie Rickenbacker

  Eye, Fighting, Sacrifice

  25 Copy quote

• Watching the Dallas Cowboys perform, it is not difficult to believe that coach Tom Landry flew fourengines bombers during World War II. He was in B17 Flying Fortresses out of England, they say. His cautious, conservative approach to every situation and the complexity of the plays he sends in do seem to reflect the philosophy of a pilot trained to doggedly press on according to plans laid down before takeoff. I sometimes wonder how the Cowboys would have fared all this years had Tom flown fighters in combat situations which dictated continuously changing tactics.

  Len Morgan

  Philosophy, War, Believe

  8 Copy quote