Aircraft Control Quotes

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

I think aerobatic flying is athletic. I don't do aerobatic flying, but I would put that in a category of a sport. I would put regular flying in the category of an art or machine-type thing.

If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.

My ears are huge. If there's ever a problem with a plane I'm on, they could just put me on the wing and I'll land the sucker.

One can get a proper insight into the practice of flying only by actual flying experiments. . . . The manner in which we have to meet the irregularities of the wind, when soaring in the air, can only be learnt by being in the air itself. . . . The only way which leads us to a quick development in human flight is a systematic and energetic practice in actual flying experiments.

So the crew fly on with no thought that they are in motion. Like night over the sea, they are very far from the earth, from towns, from trees. The clock ticks on. The dials, the radio lamps, the various hands and needles go though their invisible alchemy. . . . and when the hour is at hand the pilot may glue his forehead to the window with perfect assurance. Out of oblivion the gold has been smelted: there it gleams in the lights of the airport.

If you must flie, flie well.

Flying small airplanes is not like being on airlines.

Pilots enjoy the fun and challenge of handling the fancy machine.

The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine. The control of the front rudder was difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center.

When you're asked to fly a 747 you better at least be able to fly a Piper cub.

It wasn't that the X-1 would kill you, it was the systems in the X-1 that would kill you.

I once made myself black out by pulling G too quickly while flying an F-18. Being unconscious in a single-seat airplane is not good. Fortunately, I woke up in time. I learned how to better plug-in my anti-G suit.

He taught me how to fly on my own and learn the tricks.

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.

It's much like playing jazz, flying. It's multitasking in real time. You have a number of instruments that alone won't tell you exactly what the airplane is doing but together give you a picture of everything that's going on.

We can make aircrafts that can navigate a maze of hallways.

I think aerobatic pilots make the best pilots because you know, you're just so confident in an aeroplane. If you're gonna get into trouble, I'd rather be with someone that's a skilled aerobatic pilot.

I had never been so challenged in an airplane that I doubted the outcome.

The flying? I'm not worried about it. I'm safe up there. I feel very comfortable with my abilities flying an airplane.