Otto Lilienthal Quotes

To fly we have to have resistance.

I usually practice on a small, low wire, that features the predominant wind. I study the meteorology of the place at the time that I am supposed to do my walk, and then I find the predominant direction and velocity of the wind and I train to fight that wind.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between the air and the wind.

Same with anyone who's been flying for years and loves it still... we're part of a world we deeply love. Just as musicians feel about scores and melodies, dancers about the steps and flow of music, so we're one with the principle of flight, the magic of being aloft in the wind!

It becomes a giant's task to compute the result when the effect of cross seas, wind at all angles and ever varying force, arched surfaces, head resistance, ratio of weight to area, and the intelligence of the guiding power crop up.

The most amazing lesson in aerodynamics I ever had was the day I climbed a thermal in a glider at the same time as an eagle. I witnessed, close up, effortlessness and lightness combined with strength, precision and determination.

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

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who... looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space... on the infinite highway of the air.

Eilmer ... was a man learned for those times ..., and in his youth had hazarded a deed of remarkable boldness. He had by some means, I scarcely know what, fastened wings to his hands and feet so that, mistaking fable for truth, he might fly like Daedalus, and, collecting the breeze on the summit of a tower, he flew for more than the distance of a furlong. But, agitated by the violence of the wind and the swirling of air, as well as by awareness of his rashness, he fell, broke his legs, and was lame ever after. He himself used to say that the cause of his failure was forgetting to put a tail on the back part.

The light dove, cleaving the air in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be still easier in empty space.

I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar!

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

They [Erasers] were bad fliers," Angel chimed in, "And in their minds, they weren't all kill the mutants, like they usually are. They were like, remember to flap!

If you must flie, flie well.

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.

... everything in the world is a force, a pull or a push. In order for us to be pushed or pulled we need to be like a sail, like a kite in the wind. But if we have a hole in the middle of our luminosity, the force goes through it and never acts upon us.

Every flight begins with a fall.

Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle.

Give me a few bits of wool to stick on the car, a good gust of mistral wind, and I could come up with a better aerodynamic package on the bridge at Avigon

But we must admit the possibility that continued investigation and experience will bring us ever nearer to that solemn moment, when the first man will rise from earth by means of wings, if only for a few seconds, and mark that historical moment which heralds the inauguration of a new era in our civilization.

If only gravity were working, the path would be symmetrical, it is the wind resistance that produces the tragic curve.

To speak of this subject you must... explain the nature of the resistance of the air, in the second the anatomy of the bird and its wings, in the third the method of working the wings in their various movements, in the fourth the power of the wings and the tail when the wings are not being moved and when the wind is favourable to serve as guide in various movements.

I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings. Coming down is the hardest thing.

...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.