Flight Technology Quotes

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.

I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we heard of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society.

Airplanes are interesting toys, but of no military value.

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

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.

If we did not have such a thing as an airplane today, we would probably create something the size of N.A.S.A. to make one.

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

Well, gentlemen, do you believe in the possibility of aerial locomotion by machines heavier than air? ... You ask yourselves doubtless if this apparatus, so marvellously adapted for aerial locomotion, is susceptible of receiving greater speed. It is not worth while to conquer space if we cannot devour it. I wanted the air to be a solid support to me, and it is. I saw that to struggle against the wind I must be stronger than the wind, and I am.

The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which men shall fly along distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration to be.

I showed it is possible to fly a little bit like a bird.

Growing up in the 1960s, I can't remember a time when I wasn't fascinated by airplanes and rockets.

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.

Aviation - and space travel, in particular - have always been especially captivating.

In my opinion, we should search for a completely different flying machine, based on other flying principles.

I have always loved aeroplanes and spacecraft and the design element.

I have had the feeling that a properly constructed flying-machine should be capable of being flown as a kite; and conversely, that a properly constructed kite should be capable of use as a flying-machine when driven by its own propellers.

It would be right to state that, with the successful flight of the XR-4 in the summer of 1942, the helicopter became a reality in the United States.

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!

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.

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

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.

There will be a new industry, and we are just now in the beginning. I will predict that in twelve or fifteen years there will be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people, that fly and see that black sky.

My career has been spent developing airplanes.

There will certainly be no lack of human pioneers when we have mastered the art of flight....Let us create vessels and sails justed to the heavenly ether, and there will be plenty of people unafraid of the empty wastes. In the meantime we shall prepare, for the brave sky-travelers, maps of the celestial bodies.