Quotes from Ernest K. Gann

Nobody who gets too damned relaxed builds up much flying time.

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.

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

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

It is the professional pilot's bounden duty to know the idiosyncrasies of each type (of airplane), for he must spend a large proportion of his active career exploiting its qualities and compensating for its faults. These secrets cannot be discovered in a ground school.

I sit far back in my seat, my right foot braced comfortably against the instrument panel, listening to the steady thrumming of the engines, content to reflect that I have at least come a long way since my barnstorming days. Not so long ago, in a rock-fenced field nearby, a young man named Blauvelt stepped away from a sputtering biplane and first sent me into the sky alone.

My mind held fast to that hot morning and the moment of coolness in the cabin. I could so easily re-enact every moment. Again-why had I gone back to exchange the beautiful charts at that precise moment? How many times would I, in whatever innocence, be compelled to choose the right time?

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.

A stood for altimeter. It told how high a man flew. B stood for boost. It told the power in the engines. C stood for compass. It told in which direction a man was proceeding. It was delightfully simple.

Because every urge but survival had been reduced to nothing, they had become a mutual will, like that which caused whole peoples to unite in desperation.

Es gibt ja keine verrücktere Idee, behauptete Tweedie weiter, als zu glauben, es gebe zwei Kategorien von Frauen: anständige und unanständige.

Alle Frauen sind im Grunde ihres Herzens Huren, erklärte er immer und immer wieder, wobei er seine traurigen, großen Augen rieb.

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.

I am not deliberately avoiding your question, General, only seeking a true answer. You ask if I am educated. Who knows what an edudated man is? My brain has been enriched with the logic of Aristotle, yet I know not how to milk a goat. I am acquaintanted with the science of Euclid, yet I cannot find a well or sail a vessel. I am familiar with Platonic philosophy, but I cannot build anything durable. Obviously I am an ignorant man.

Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are willing victims to the spell." -- Ernest K. Gann

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

MaCleod, since you've flown the SeaBee a lot you'll understand when I say it was the only airplane I ever owned that you could put in a dive, loose a cylinder and stall out!