Some quotes

[Owi]

Hello all,

 

I just received a nice selection of militarily derived quotes which included aviation. I thought I'd share some of those here. Apologies if they're old news.

 

Cheers,

 

The three most useless things in aviation are: Fuel in the bowser; Runway behind you; and Air above you.

 

- Basic Flight Training Manual

 

'You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3'

 

- Paul F. Crickmore (SR71 test pilot)

 

'The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.'

 

- Unknown Author

 

'Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to successfully complete the flight.'

 

- Basic Flight Training Manual

 

'Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.'

 

- Emergency Checklist

 

'There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime.'

 

-Sign over Squadron Ops Desk at Davis-Montham AFB, AZ

 

 

[GraemeK]

One of my favourite military ones was the sign at the entrance to the old SR-71 Blackbird base in Kadena, Okinawa:

 

"Though I fly through the Valley of Death, I shall fear no evil. For I am at 80,000 feet and climbing."

 

 

[hihosland]

Few human activities are as intimate as the interaction between pilot and student, who sit crammed sweaty elbow to elbow, balanced in the swaying sky, seeking the best of each other” __________________

 

 

[Marty_d]

'The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.'

- Unknown Author

Or when your hydraulics and electrics are shot because one of your engines disintegrated sending shrapnel through bundles of cables and pipes, so you can't dump the tons of fuel you need to (because you're still near take-off weight and some of the other systems that've been degraded are airbrakes and wheel brakes), causing you to land at a higher speed than normal, heavier than normal, with less brakes than normal.

 

QF32, in other words.

 

 

[hihosland]

The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival.

 

Large angle of arrival, small probability of survival and vice versa.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

The price of speed is the occasional sudden stop.

 

 

[Marty_d]

He who bendeth an undercarriage may in the fullness of time be forgiven; but he who taxieth into another chariot shall be despised forever.

 

 

[Yenn]

A bit hard on the taildragger pilot. I recently saw a photo of a trailer that had been parked on a taxiway and chopped up by a taildragger.

 

At least it wasn't a marshall who insisted in standing in front of the plane.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

At least it wasn't a marshall who insisted in standing in front of the plane.

Isn't that the safest place to be (taildragger).

 

 

[red750]

Apropos of today's major news story, Oscar Wilde once said: "The right to bear arms makes as much sense as the right to arm bears.

 

 

[hihosland]

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

 

For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating.

 

For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight.

 

More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

 

*************— Richard Bach, 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull'

 

 

[rankamateur]

He who bendeth an undercarriage may in the fullness of time be forgiven; but he who taxieth into another chariot shall be despised forever.

 

You were saying?

 

 

[hihosland]

"Sonny, no one has left one up there yet"

 

Ex-RAF instructor in response to another student expressing apprehension prior to his first solo

 

 

[Marty_d]

[ATTACH=full]39741[/ATTACH]You were saying?

Yep, ask the owner of that chopped-up plane what he thinks of the person who taxied into it!

 

A bit hard on the taildragger pilot. I recently saw a photo of a trailer that had been parked on a taxiway and chopped up by a taildragger.At least it wasn't a marshall who insisted in standing in front of the plane.

If they can't drive it on the ground as well as the air, perhaps they should consider switching to a nosewheel...

 

 

[hihosland]

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

 

— Michael Parfit, 'Smithsonian' magazine, May 2000

 

 

[facthunter]

Near some of the best offices in the world with the best views, you will be able to read the word BOEING. Nev

 

 

[kaz3g]

My recollection of that chopped up aeroplane was that it resulted from a flat battery in another one that got away from the owner.

 

Dick Gower has a story or two about such things.

 

Kaz

 

 

[facthunter]

Some starter motors will remain engaged if the battery goes flat while cranking. If you just whack a new battery in it could start up but you would have to have ignition and throttle in the wrong place. Nev

 

 

[hihosland]

was it not the result of a hand prop start without chocks

 

and without seeking the assistance of

 

other pilots were around at the time?

 

 

[Camel]

Son, you're going to have to make up your mind about growing up and becoming a pilot. You can't do both.

 

 

[hihosland]

The air up there in the clouds is very pure and fine, bracing and delicious. And why shouldn't it be? -- it is the same the angels breathe.

 

— Mark Twain, ‘Roughing It,’ 1886.

 

 

[hihosland]

Thanks to local former aviator Len Mills for passing on this anguished piece. It’ll ring bells for you not only on air travel, but also on political correctness, gender relations and social attitudes that have all changed radically in the last decade or three.

 

That's John Travolta's own 707 in the picture, painted up in old Qantas livery. I reckon that secretly, most men want to be like him. and the guy who wrote the following piece, probably once was like him.

 

“Those were the good ole days. Pilots back then were men that didn't want to be women or girlymen. Pilots drank coffee and whiskey, smoked cigars and didn't wear digital watches.

 

“They carried their own suitcases and brain bags like the real men that they were. Pilots didn't bend over into the crash position multiple times each day in front of the passengers at security so that some government agent could probe for tweezers or fingernail clippers or too much toothpaste.

 

“Pilots did not go through the terminal impersonating a caddy pulling a bunch of golf clubs, computers, guitars, and feed bags full of tofu and granola on a sissy-trailer with no hat and granny glasses hanging on a pink string around their pencil neck while talking to their personal trainer on their cell phone.

 

“Being an airline captain was as good as being the King in a Mel Brooks movie. All the stewardesses (a.k.a. flight attendants) were young, attractive, single women who were proud to be combatants in the sexual revolution.

 

“They didn't have to turn sideways, grease up and suck it in to get through the cockpit door. They would blush and say thank you when told that they looked good, instead of filing a sexual harassment claim.

 

“Passengers wore nice clothes and were polite, they could speak AND understand English. They didn't speak gibberish or listen to loud 'gangsta rap' on their iPods. They bathed and didn't smell like a rotting pile of garbage in a jogging suit and flip-flops. Children didn't travel alone, commuting between trailer parks. There were no mongol hordes asking for a "mu-fuggin" seatbelt extension or a Scotch and grapefruit juice cocktail with a twist.

 

“If the captain wanted to throw some offensive, ranting jerk off the airplane, it was done without any worries of a lawsuit or getting fired.

 

“Axial flow engines crackled with the sound of freedom and left an impressive black smoke trail like a locomotive burning soft coal. Jet fuel was cheap and once the throttles were pushed up they were left there. After all , it was the jet age and the idea was to go fast (run like a lizard on a hardwood floor).

 

“Economy cruise was something in the performance book, but no one knew why or where it was. When the clacker [a flight-deck warning sound] went off no one got all tight and scared because Boeing built it out of iron, nothing was going to fall off and that sound had the same effect on real pilots then as Viagra does now for those new age guys.

 

“There was very little plastic and no composites in the airplanes or the stewardesses' pectoral regions. Airplanes and women had eye-pleasing symmetrical curves, not a bunch of ugly vortex generators, ventral fins, winglets, flow diverters, tattoos, rings in their nose, tongues and eyebrows. “Airlines were run by real men like Juan Trippe [the founder of Pan Am] who had built their companies virtually from scratch, knew many of their employees by name and were lifetime airline employees themselves...not these pseudo financiers and bean counters who now flit from one occupation to another for a few extra bucks, a better golden parachute, or a fancier title, while fervently believing that they are a better class of beings unto themselves.

 

“And so it was back then....and sadly, will never be again.”

 

lifted from http://outlouder.blogspot.com.au

 

 

[eightyknots]

"When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it..." HENRY FORD

 

 

[eightyknots]

"The propeller is just a big fan in the front of the plane to keep the pilot cool. Do you want proof? Make it stop and then watch the pilot break out into a sweat."

 

 

[hihosland]

* * * * * The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the race of gods. More than any other thing that pertains to the body it partakes of the nature of the divine.

 

• * * * * — Plato, 'Phaedrus.'