Pilots And Flying Quotes Page 2

Listen, Mr. President, there's a no-fly zone in Syria. You fly in, it applies to you. And, yes, we would shoot down the planes of Russian pilots if, in fact, they were stupid enough to think that this president was the same feckless weakling that the president we have in the oval office is right now.

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

What is that mountain goat doing way up here in the clouds?

I went to the University of Washington as a physics and astronomy major.

My other interest, of course, was aviation. I always wanted to be a pilot. And if you're going to fly airplanes, the best place to be is the Air Force.

The way an aircraft flies - that is the way the strategy works.

Most of the time the plane is on autopilot, and does a great job of flying itself. Every once in a while it is necessary for the pilot to jump in.

What is it in fact, this learning to fly? To be precise, it is 'to learn NOT to fly wrong.' To learn to become a pilot is to learn - not to let oneself fly too slowly. Not to let oneself turn without accelerating. Not to cross the controls. Not to do this, and not to do that. . . . To pilot is negation.

Every flying machine has its own unique characteristics, some good, some not so good. Pilots naturally fly the craft in such a manner as to take advantage of its good characteristics and avoid the areas where it is not so good.

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

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.

When I was getting close to being accepted for pilot training, I was allowed to get in a jet airplane. I sat there looking at all those switches and dials and I got the distinct feeling that I was sitting in the nose of bomb. I realized my fantasies of flying and fighting were just that - fantasies.

Learning to fly an airplane taught me a way of thinking, an approach to problem-solving that was applicable and effective. Pilots are very methodical and meticulous, and artists tend not to be.

I was a child of World War Two . I saw films of pilots taking off from aircraft carriers and decided that was the only thing I wanted to do. And it had to be flying from sea carriers. Airfields were not enough.

Whenever we safely land in a plane, we promise God a little something.

Flying is done largely with the imagination.

Never fly anything that doesn't have the paint worn off the rudder Pedals.

Why fly? Simple. I'm not happy unless there's some room between me and the ground.

Pilots are a rare kind of human. They leave the ordinary surface of the word, to purify their soul in the sky, and they come down to earth, only after receiving the communion of the infinite.

Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in a fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die?

I've been on planes flying through thunder storms when the pilot says, 'ladies and gentlemen, we tried to fly around it but we can't so it's going to be rough'.And when a pilot says it's going to be bad, it's going to be rough. And you say to youself, boy, I could have got the train.

Leader, bandits at 2 o'clock! Roger; it's only 1:30 now-what'll I do 'til then?

Airshow flying is tough, it's even tougher if you do something stupid. Don't do nuthin dumb!

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.

My first wife didn't like to fly, either.

As a physician and as a pilot, I think it lets me be a pretty good translator having one foot in the medical world and one foot in the flying world. Sometimes when the medical guys come in and speak medical stuff to the pilots, the pilots really don't know what they're saying.

So, whenever Scooter was the Pilot, he never had a chance to fly the orbiter.

So, the joke is: I'm going to have a chance to fly it first and hand it over to him.

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.

I have often been asked what I think about at the moment of take-off.

Of course, no pilot sits and feels his pulse as he flies. He has to be part of the machine. If he thinks of anything but the task in hand, then trouble is probably just around the corner.

I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I've got kids and responsibilities, so I can't be my own test pilot. That wouldn't be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it's a sensible thing to do.

You can't have a helicopter fly over boiling lava.

It would've exploded from the heat, and is just way too dangerous. The pilot of a helicopter would've flatly refused anyway.

I only do children's films now! I think when you go to LA some people feel you've defected a little bit and that's not really the case. Ideally, I would love to work here and to work in America. That's in an ideal world. In fact, I came back to Britain recently to do an ITV1 drama that will be out in April for a couple of months! But I'm flying back to LA to do a pilot season. So, to work in both places is great.

I feel very confident that Americans flying in the air are safe, and that only under the most dire of circumstances would our pilots even request permission to do that.

I just want to apologise for being late.

I was flying back from Spain and the air hostess said: "We are two hours late Mr Carson." When I asked why, she said: "The pilot has heard a funny noise in the engine that he doesn't like, so we are waiting on another pilot who can't hear it."

I think there is something exhilarating in flying amongst clouds, and always get a feeling of wanting to pit my aeroplane against them, charge at them, climb over them to show them you have them beat, circle round them, and generally play with them; but clouds can on occasion hold their own against the aviator, and many a pilot has found himself emerging from a cloud not on a level keel.

Whenever the weather licks the pilot instead of him lickin' the weather, he's finished. The first time makes the second time easier. And the first thing he knows, he's in trouble when the weather is perfect.

I was a pilot and flying hang gliders, paragliders, aerobatics airplanes, and then I discovered skydiving. Free fall. Free. With nothing around you, just a parachute on your back. And you go down. But you don't feel like you're going down. Total freedom.