Igor Sikorsky Quotes

In 1903 the Wright brothers invented airplanes, because in 1902 they took a road trip across the country with their family.

The aeroplane is an invention of the devil and will never play any part in such a serious business as the defence of the nation, my boy!

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 confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years.

Every time you go to an airport and get on a plane, you are basically taking advantage of the work that was done at Langley. Between World War I and World War II, they did just tremendous amount of fundamental research into basically making airplanes safer, making them more stable.

You can still see the shadow from when the Zeppelin floated over America; it took like Islam in the desert . . .

We returned home, after these experiments, with the conviction that sailing flight was not the exclusive prerogative of birds.

Few people who know of the work of Langley, Lilienthal, Pilcher, Maxim and Chanute but will be inclined to believe that long before the year 2000 A.D., and very probably before 1950, a successful aeroplane will have soared and come home safe and sound.

The chilly December day! two shivering bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio first felt their homemade contraption whittled out of hickory sticks, gummed together with Arnstein's bicycle cement, stretched with muslin they'd sewn on their sister's sewing machine in their own backyard on Hawthorn Street in Dayton, Ohio, soar into the air above the dunes and the wide beach at Kitty Hawk.

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.

Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting.

I must place on record my regret that the human race ever learned to fly.

The helicopter is probably the most versatile instrument ever invented by man. It approaches closer than any other to fulfillment of mankind's ancient dreams of the flying horse and the magic carpet.

...when the little boy discovered, at four, the same thing Mr. Smith had learned earlier -- that only birds and planes could fly -- he lost all interest in himself.

To the possible enquiry as to the probable character of a successful flying machine, the writer would answer that in his judgment two types of such machines may eventually be evolved: one, which may be termed the soaring type, and which will carry but a single operator, and another, likely to be developed somewhat later, which may be termed the journeying type, to carry several passengers, and to be provided with a motor.

This machine was a failure to the extent that it could not fly. In other respects it was a very important and necessary stepping stone.

People get famous now for I-don't-know-what. People have reality shows because they're a Hollywood socialite, and these things become very successful and they generate a shitload of money for the company. And it's multiplying, to where you're literally looking into your next door neighbor's bathroom with reckless abandon. It is like watching a fire. You can't take your eyes off of it.

Differential equations won't help you much in the design of aeroplanes - not yet, anyhow.

Regardless of what we think we know and should happen the reality is that a lot of stock action is random. Therefore, money management is crucial if you want to be successful as a trader. To me, it's the cornerstone of both making a living at trading and building wealth.

The Americans cannot build aeroplanes. They are very good at refrigerators and razor blades.

I think progress began to retrogress when Wilbur and Orville started tinkering around in Dayton and at Kitty Hawk, because I believe that two Wrights made a wrong.

I mean, if Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at twenty-two, the history of music would have been very different. As would the history of aviation, of course.

There is no such thing as Success....That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey.

The most successful revolutions aren't those that are celebrated with parades and banners, drums and trumpets, cannons and fireworks. The really successful revolutions are those that occur quietly, unnoticed, uncommemorated. We don't celebrate the day the United States Constitution was destroyed; it didn't happen on a specific date, and most Americans still don't realize it happened at all. We don't say the Constitution has ceased to exist; we merely say that it's a 'living document.' But it amounts to the same thing.