Michael Dickinson Quotes

When you see a fly flitting around your hair or your potato salad, you might see an annoyance. But in my lab, you really see a marvelous machine: arguably the most sophisticated flying device on the planet.

The pilot looked at his cues of attitude and speed and orientation and so on and responded as he would from the same cues in an airplane, but there was no way it flew the same. The simulators had showed us that.

Flying was great. You have to think fast. You have to develop intuition about the physics of air moving quickly over a surface.

Let me do it. You tell me when you want it and where you want it to land, and I'll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.

Five per cent vision is better than no vision at all. Five per cent hearing is better than no hearing at all. Five per cent flight efficiency is better than no flight at all. It is thoroughly believable that every organ or apparatus that we actually see is the product of a smooth trajectory through animal space, a trajectory in which every intermediate stage assisted survival and reproduction.

I had a grandmother who was blind and she taught me to understand sound as an image.

I think being in a car is far more dangerous. I feel much more in control with a 16 foot croc, 3,000 pounds jaw pressure trying to have a go at me.

I don't play a lot of games. I play flight simulators, mostly.

Pilots are tricky because there are so many things you have to accomplish.

Sighted people, you gotta deal with them.

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.

While my hand is on the stick, my feet on the rudder, and my eyes on the compass, this consciousness, like a winged messenger, goes out to visit the waves below, testing the warmth of water, the speed of wind, the thickness of intervening clouds. It goes north to the glacial coasts of Greenland, over the horizon to the edge of dawn, ahead to Ireland, England, and the continent of Europe, away through space to the moon and stars, always returning, unwillingly, to the mortal duty of seeing that the limbs and muscles have attended their routine while it was gone.

As soon as you know a man to be blind, you imagine that you can see it from his back.

I cannot say what color Lenore Beadsman’s eyes are; I cannot look at them; they are the sun to me.

Backlock, a poet blind from his birth, could describe visual objects with accuracy; Professor Sanderson, who was also blind, gave excellent lectures on color, and taught others the theory of ideas which they had and he had not. In the social sphere these gifted ones are mostly women; they can watch a world which they never saw, and estimate forces of which they have only heard. We call it intuition.

I have had the feeling that a properly constructed flying-machine should be capable of being flown as a kite; and conversely, that a properly constructed kite should be capable of use as a flying-machine when driven by its own propellers.

Apollo was a big, unwieldy vehicle. I had a problem with the flight controllers over that. It would try to fare its way like an airplane.

If a man cannot see a church, it is preposterous to take his opinion about its altar-piece or painted window.

We believe what we see.’...What do you do when you’re in the dark?

Flying prevails whenever a man and his airplane are put to a test of maximum performance.

About 10 percent of the hearing impaired get musical hallucinations, and about 10 percent of the visually impaired get visual hallucinations.

I think with being blind the one thing you would have going is that you could still feel things, see your way around so to speak. And if you had had the experience of seeing at one time in your life, then you would know what it was like and be able to function. I've said this before, I think I could really photograph blind if I had to.

Artificial flight may be defined as that form of aviation in which a man flies at will in any direction by means of an apparatus attached to his body, the use of which requires personal skill. Artificial flight by a single individual is the proper beginning for all species of artificial flight, as the necessary conditions can most easily be fulfilled when man flies individually.

Oh, say! what is that thing call'd light, Which I must ne'er enjoy? What are the blessings of the sight? Oh, tell your poor blind boy!

We flew over to England by the same route Churchill took. It was easy. All we had to do was follow the cigar ashes.