Dave Barry Quotes

In the early days of aviation, there was a great deal of experimentation and a high death rate.

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

The mastery of the turn is the story of how aviation became practical as a means of transportation. It is the story of how the world became small.

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

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.

During my training to become an airline captain, I had to learn how to navigate an airplane over long distances. Flights over huge oceans, crossing extensive deserts, and connecting continents need careful planning to ensure a safe arrival at the planned destination.

I've spent an awful lot of my time in the air. I've had everything happen to me in a plane that could happen. Except a crash.

I was the first in my family to board an airplane. I was the first in my family to get kicked off an airplane.

If you don't trust the pilot, don't go.

With all the knowledge and skill acquired in thousands of flights in the last ten years, I would hardly think today of making my first flight on a strange machine in a twenty-seven mile wind, even if I knew that the machine had already been flown and was safe.

Flying small airplanes is not like being on airlines.

As a military pilot and a test pilot, handling unusual situations and aircraft malfunctions was part of the business.

When I started flying, I realized how enjoyable it was, and flying became my main focus while engineering went on the back burner.

Airline food is not intended for human consumption. It's intended as a form of in-flight entertainment, wherein the object is to guess what it is, starting with broad categories such as "mineral" and "linoleum."

In modern America, food is abundant everywhere except aboard commercial airplanes.

I was trampled to death by a man who believed his luggage would be the first piece off. If he were an experienced traveler, he would know that the first piece of luggage belongs to no one. It's just a dummy suitcase to give everyone hope.

As the colonel and I sat swapping stories in the plane, a jet aircraft buzzed past our window. I asked the colonel what type of aircraft it was, and he said, "Don't worry about it, Bob. . . if you can see it, it's obsolete."

Modern air travel means less time spent in transit. That time is now spent in transit lounges.

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

The captain has just turned on the fasten-seat-belt-sign. He didn't mean to, but the joint he was smoking fell in his lap, and when he jumped up, his head hit the switch.

If the security personnel do their job properly, they just might cause you to miss your plane, thereby possibly saving your life.

This year, U.S. airlineswill carry a record 143 million passengers, who will be in the air for 382 million hours, during which they will be fed an estimated total of four peanuts.

To fly or not to fly, that's the question.

If the black box flight recorder is never damaged during a plane crash, why isn’t the whole airplane made out of that stuff?

England manufactures most of the world's airline food, as well as all the food you ever ate in your junior-high-school cafeteria.