Quotes About Aviation

The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy's aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.

By 1929 a handful of farsighted flight pioneers had concluded that "aviation could not progress until planes could fly safely day or night in almost any kind of weather." Foremost among these was Dr. Jimmy Doolittle, recently armed with a PhD in aeronautical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In

Not that the title of top American ace wasn't flattering. After all, Rickenbacker had shot down seven enemy planes in as many months. It was just that all of the former recipients of the honor had all been killed, and he could not help but ruminate over what he called "the unavoidable doom that had overtaken its previous holders." Rickenbacker

In late 1915 there appeared on the Western Front a German flier named Manfred von Richthofen, known as the Red Baron, after his royal title and a penchant for painting his squadron's Fokker triwing fighters red. He was a natural born killer who shot down more than eighty enemy aircraft before himself being fatally brought down by ground fire

Lindbergh was horrified. "The English," he wrote in his diary, "are in no shape for war. They do not realize what they are confronted with. They have always before had a fleet between themselves and their enemy, and they can't realize the change aviation has made. I am afraid this is the beginning of the end of England as a great power."38

People in south China will eat everything that flies in the sky, except an airplane.

The test accident almost bankrupted Boeing,

What's the fastest speed you ever went in your Spitfire?

sitting behind the controls of his Hurricane, taking on a squadron of deadly Messerschmitts, when

Please don't take my wings...

I watched them taxi off across the grass and take off.

FLY THE PLANE, MADDIE.

Elizabeth Wein

Aviation is not in itself inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than even the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect.

At Southwest, they're on a mission to democratize air travel. When they first started, the only people who could fly were relatively wealthy businesspeople, and Herb Kelleher's vision was to offer everyone the chance to visit a friend or relative during a happy and a sad time. That's a vision employees can get excited about.

When I started working on Southwest Airlines, I kid you not, only people flying on business and very wealthy people ever flew.

My grandmother was, back when they called them 'stewardesses,' a flight attendant. I actually had a ball wearing that little uniform and making sure everything was under control.

I love being able to go on local flights when the weather is right. I've popped to the Isle of Wight, Cornwall and been mountain flying in Wales. When I got my licence I was over the moon, it was one of the greatest days of my life - it took two years to get!

If it's really beautiful weather, sometimes I might take a helicopter out. I got my license in 1999.

I rarely watch TV but I guess I'd watch the weather report since I fly so much.

I think the hardest thing that, historically, the industry may have relied upon is that we can't control weather, we can't control air traffic control, and use that at the end of the day as an excuse. Things do happen - we know they happen. We don't exactly know when they are going to happen, but we should definitely be prepped.

I never was one to go into an office and write. For one thing, I had a job. I was cleaning the ashtrays and setting up the studios at Columbia for a couple of years and working every other week down in the Gulf of Mexico flying helicopters. I didn't really get to just write songs for about five years.

For twenty years, not a week went by when I wasn't on a plane.

I probably fly twice a week, within Canada and the States.