100 Great Aviation Quotes

Following is our list of great aviation quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about aviation life.

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Famous Great Aviation Quotes

Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible. — Edward Rickenbacker

Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible. — Eddie Rickenbacker

To most people, the sky is the limit. To those who love aviation, the sky is home. — Jerry Crawford

Men and women owe it to themselves and their nations to become interested in aviation. It's a field where we all can be as big as we want. — Bessie Coleman

Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle. - Igor Sikorsky

Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle. — Igor Sikorsky

Flying is more than a sport and more than a job; flying is pure passion and desire, which fill a lifetime. — Adolf Galland

Pilots are drawn to flying because it's a perfect combination of science, romance and adventure. — Charles Lindbergh

Any idiot can get an airplane off the ground, but an aviator earns his keep by bringing it back anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances that man and God can dream up. — Walter Cunningham

And let's get one thing straight. There's a big difference between a pilot and an aviator. One is a technician; the other is an artist in love with flight. — Elrey Borge Jeppesen

An airplane might disappoint any pilot but it'll never surprise a good one. — Len Morgan

Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempest. — Epicurus

Mass travel by air may prove to be more significant to world destiny than the atom bomb. — Juan Trippe

Airplanes were invented for missionaries to complete the Great Commission. - Loren Cunningham

Airplanes were invented for missionaries to complete the Great Commission. — Loren Cunningham

Because of its independence of surface limitations and its superior speed the airplane is the offensive weapon par excellence. — Giulio Douhet

I was interested in aerospace and flying, and the U.S. is really the best place in the world for flying. — Kalpana Chawla

Short Great Aviation Quotes

  • Flying might not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price. — Amelia Earhart
  • I had a flight trainer who is one of the biggest and most famous helicopter pilots the world. — Izabella Scorupco
  • The engine is the heart of an aeroplane, but the pilot is its soul. — Walter Alexander Raleigh
  • There is no reason why the aeroplane should not open up a fruitful occupation for women. — Harriet Quimby
  • Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are willing victims to the spell. — Ernest K. Gann
  • It's like flying jet fighters in a gymnasium — Dick Trickle
  • Even the ablest pilots are willing to receive advice from passengers in tempestuous weather. — Marcus Tullius Cicero
  • In flying, the probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. — Neil Armstrong
  • The day I am not able to fly will be a sad day for me. — Ratan Tata
  • Who was the best pilot I ever saw? You're lookin' at 'im. — Gordon Cooper

Great Aviation Image Quotes

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? - Mae West quote

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? — Mae West

Great aviation quote Silence is a source of great strength.
Silence is a source of great strength.

Good Aviation Quotes

The Americans cannot build aeroplanes. They are very good at refrigerators and razor blades. — Hermann Goring

If we maintain our faith in God, love of freedom, and superior global air power, the future looks good. — Curtis LeMay

There are pilots and there are pilots; with the good ones, it is inborn. You can't teach it. If you are a fighter pilot, you have to be willing to take risks. — Robin Olds

Great aviation quote Make today so awesome, yesterday gets jealous.
Make today so awesome, yesterday gets jealous.

Experience comes from bad judgment. — Mark Twain

I'm here to tell you that I am proud of a couple of things. First, I am very good at projectile vomiting. Second, I've never had a really serious venereal disease. — Herb Kelleher

Gravity. It's not just a good idea; it's the law! — Adam Savage

Great aviation quote Great minds discuss ideas.Average minds discuss events.Small minds discuss people.
Great minds discuss ideas.Average minds discuss events.Small minds discuss people.

A pilot must have a memory developed to absolute perfection. But there are two higher qualities which he also must have. He must have good and quick judgment and decision, and a cool, calm courage that no peril can shake. — Mark Twain

The airline business is fast-paced, high risk, and highly leveraged. It puts a premium on things I like to do. I think I communicate well. And I am very good at detail. I love detail. — Robert Crandall

The Constitution: it's not just a good idea, it's the law. — Michael Badnarik

The good thing about flying solo is it's never boring. — Steve Fossett

Aviation Life Quotes

If you are in trouble anywhere in the world, an airplane can fly over and drop flowers, but a helicopter can land and save your life. — Igor Sikorsky

I thought it my duty to risk my life to learn aviation and to encourage flying among men and women who are so far behind the White race in this modern study. — Bessie Coleman

To consider the Earth as the only populated world in infinite space is as absurd as to assert that in an entire field of millet, only one grain will grow. — Metrodorus of Chios

Great aviation quote Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.
Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.

I knew we had no aviators, neither men nor women, and I knew the race needed to be represented along this most important line. — Bessie Coleman

Would not the sight of a single enemy airplane be enough to induce a formidable panic? Normal life would be unable to continue under the constant threat of death and imminent destruction. — Giulio Douhet

Until now I have never really lived! Life on earth is a creeping, crawling business. It is in the air that one feels the glory of being a man and of conquering the elements. There is an exquisite smoothness of motion and the joy of gliding through space. It is wonderful! — Gabriele d'Annunzio

Great aviation quote Acknowledge all of your small victories. They will eventually add up to something great.
Acknowledge all of your small victories. They will eventually add up to something great.

I believe the risks I take are justified by the sheer love of the life I lead. — Charles Lindbergh

The men in this book are fictitious characters but their counterparts can be found in cockpits all over the world. Now they are flying a war. Tomorrow they will be flying a peace, for, regardless of the world's condition, flying is their life. — Ernest K. Gann

To put your life in danger from time to time... breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities. — Nevil Shute

One day the stars will be as familiar to each man as the landmarks, the curves, and the hills on the road that leads to his door, and one day that will be an airborne life. — Beryl Markham

Aviation Quotes

As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind - every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder. — John Glenn

Do you know how much faster I can fix an airplane when I want to fix it than when I don't want to fix it? — Gordon Bethune

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Great aviation quote You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.
You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.

Fight on and fly on to the last drop of blood and the last drop of fuel, to the last beat of the heart. — Manfred von Richthofen

Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Use your fear... it can take you to the place where you store your courage. - Amelia Earhart

Use your fear... it can take you to the place where you store your courage. — Amelia Earhart

Great aviation quote Failure is a great teacher, and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer.
Failure is a great teacher, and, if you are open to it, every mistake has a lesson to offer.

Decide...whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying. — Amelia Earhart

No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Goering. You may call me Meyer. — Hermann Goring

The quality of the box matters little. Success depends upon the man who sits in it. — Manfred von Richthofen

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

People Writing About Great Aviation

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Eddie Rickenbacker

Eddie Rickenbacker
quotes on life, war and education

31 485
Read quotes by Bessie Coleman

Bessie Coleman
quotes on equality, perspective and life

15 105
Read quotes by Igor Sikorsky

Igor Sikorsky
quotes on leadership, war and life

16 840
Read quotes by Adolf Galland

Adolf Galland
quotes on war, leadership and love

33 433
Read quotes by Charles Lindbergh

Charles Lindbergh
quotes on flying

125 1106
Read quotes by Walter Cunningham

Walter Cunningham

11 70

More Great Aviation Quotes

For most gulls it was not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. — Richard Bach

If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow, why oh why can't I? — Yip Harburg

If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible. — Bob Hoover

My solution to the problem would be to tell [the North Vietnamese Communists] frankly that they've got to draw in their horns and stop their aggression or we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age. And we would shove them back into the Stone Age with Air power or Naval power - not with ground forces. — Curtis LeMay

This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts, and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to. — Harry Reasoner

Flying is hours and hours of boredom sprinkled with a few seconds of sheer terror. — Pappy Boyington

Sometimes, flying feels too godlike to be attained by man. Sometimes, the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see . — Charles Lindbergh

You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky. — Amelia Earhart

The thing is helicopters are different from airplanes An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or incompetent piloting, it will fly — Harry Reasoner

A pilot who says he has never been frightened in an airplane is, I'm afraid, lying. — Louise Thaden

Get rid at the outset of the idea that the airplane is only an air-going sort of automobile. It isn't. It may sound like one and smell like one, and it may have been interior decorated to look like one; but the difference is - it goes on wings. — Wolfgang Langewiesche

Keep thy airspeed up, less the earth come from below and smit thee. — William K. Kershner

I ask people who don't fly, "How can you not fly when you live in a time in history when you can fly?" — William Langewiesche

Can the magic of flight ever be carried by words? I think not. — Michael Parfit

If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work. — Beryl Markham

It is hard enough for anyone to map out a course of action and stick to it, particularly in the face of the desires of one's friends; but it is doubly hard for an aviator to stay on the ground waiting for just the right moment to go into the air. — Glenn Curtiss

Rule books are paper - they will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal. — Ernest K. Gann

The spacious firmament on high, And all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim. — Joseph Addison

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

There are two kinds of airplanes - those you fly and those that fly you . . . You must have a distinct understanding at the very start as to who is the boss. — Ernest K. Gann

Nobody who gets too damned relaxed builds up much flying time. — Ernest K. Gann

Electronics were rascals, and they lay awake nights trying to find some way to screw you during the day. You could not reason with them. They had a brain and intestines, but no heart. — Ernest K. Gann

I think it is a pity to lose the romantic side of flying and simply to accept it as a common means of transport, although that end is what we have all ostensibly been striving to attain. — Amy Johnson

I don't think I possess any skill that anyone else doesn't have. I've just had perhaps more of an opportunity, more of an exposure, and been fortunate to survive a lot of situations that many other weren't so lucky to make it. — Bob Hoover

No one can realize how substantial the air is, until he feels its supporting power beneath him. It inspires confidence at once. — Otto Lilienthal

Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight - how to get from shore to food and back again — Richard Bach

It's when things are going just right that you'd better be suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and you're the answer to the Wright brothers' prayers. You say to yourself, nothing can go wrong ... all my trespasses are forgiven. Best you not believe it. — Ernest K. Gann

The emergencies you train for almost never happen. It's the one you can't train for that kills you. — Ernest K. Gann

I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery

If you don't like what you see, stop looking. — Nancy Lopez

The most beautiful dream that has haunted the heart of man since Icarus is today reality. — Louis Bleriot

Tired of trying to sort them out, you relax for a second, then your head drops and you sit up with a jerk, Where are you? What are you doing here? Oh yes, of course, you are somewhere in the middle of the North Atlantic, with hungry waves below you like vultures impatiently waiting for the end. — Amy Johnson

Mistakes are inevitable in aviation, especially when one is still learning new things. The trick is to not make the mistake that will kill you. — Stephen Coonts

In Conclusion

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