Gus Grissom Quotes

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.

It was a unique childhood, to say the least. My father was born in Patiala to refugee parents and was a part of the Indian Air Force. The talented few amongst the Air Force pilots are made test pilots. Test pilots are best suited to look at the space programme as they are trained to expect the unexpected.

When you design it, think how you would feel if you had to fly it! Safety first!

Nothing focuses your mind quite like flying a jet. That's one reason NASA requires that astronauts fly T-38s: it forces us to concentrate and prioritize in some of the same ways we need to in a rocket ship.

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

I was a naval officer and aviator. I tested airplanes and got selected to be an astronaut later on.

As astronauts know better than anyone else, risks, incidents, and mishaps are inevitable in the development of any high-performance vehicle. The emergence of supersonic flight during the 1940s and of the Century Series of fighters in the 1950s came with the loss of several test pilots. Still, it was a glorious time.

All astronauts, even civilians like me without pilot experience, have to learn how to co-pilot a jet called a T-38.

My career has been spent developing airplanes.

There's simply no substitute for experience in terms of aviation safety.

I never intended to become a professional pilot. But, as I became more curious about aircraft, and, well, not being John Travolta, I realized that the only way I was ever going to fly a jet is if I got a job.

Flying, for some reason, has never been my favorite thing, but after taking some aviation classes and reading about it and learning about it... They've been doing this for over a hundred years, they've been to the moon and back; they kind of have a good system going here.

I learned to fly an airplane, and had my own airplane during the 1960s.

You've done it in the simulator so many times, you don't have a real sense of being excited when the flight is going on. You're excited before, but as soon as the liftoff occurs, you are busy doing what you have to do.

If you want to grow old as a pilot, you've got to know when to push it, and when to back off.

I realized how important it was to know something about aviation, and it was something I was interested in, so I followed my brother's footsteps and obtained my pilot's license.

Most pilots learn, when they pin on their wings and go out and get in a fighter, especially, that one thing you don't do, you don't believe anything anybody tells you about an airplane.

I did want to be a pilot. I wanted to be a military pilot because I liked airplanes. I was interested in modeling airplanes.

I grew up thinking that I would become a fighter pilot and was fascinated by aircrafts as I had grown up around that. But my father encouraged me to not become an Air Force person, given the varied interests I had, be it books, movies, sports or fighter flying.

Every day, I'm working on my aviation career so that I don't have to think about working as an actor.

I never thought that one day that this NAS Jax would be the center of aviation excellence in the Southeast and from pole to pole.

I did a little bit of flying in high school, but I've just always been inspired and excited about airplanes.

We produce motor drive electronics; we produce cargo systems for large narrow-body and wide-body airplanes and, more importantly, the emergency escape chute that goes on these planes.

My first inclination was toward flying and being a pilot.

They say any landing you can walk away from is a good one.