Airplanes don’t respond to logbooks, lies or legends, only to good headwork and the control inputs we make.
~Michael Maya Charles, Aviation author, photographer and pilot

WHAT IS A FIGHTER PILOT…

A fighter pilot is noted for intelligence, independence, integrity, courage, and patriotism. “Fighter Pilot” is a state of mind, not a job title. Therefore, not all people who fly fighters are fighter pilots, nor do all fighter pilots fly fighters, some of them drive trucks.
~Courtesy, The “River Rats”

HIGH FLIGHT

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth of sun split clouds-and done a hundred things you have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up the long delirious, burning blue, I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace where never lark or even eagle flew. And while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out my hand and touched the face of God.
~Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Junior No. 412 Squadron RCAF
Killed on December 11, 1942

Without ammunition, the Air Force is just an expensive flying club.
~Anonymous

In flying I have learned that carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks.
~Wilbur Wright in a letter to his father. September 1900

It’s not the mistake you’ve made, but how you make the recovery.
~Bill Cherwin, former flight lead of the Lima Lima Flight Team

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who, in their grueling travels across trackless lands in prehistoric times, looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space, above all obstacles, on the infinite highway of the air.
~Wilber Wright

If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it; ride the bastard down.
~Earnest K Gann, author & aviator

Pilots make poor house pets.
~Captain Hank Krakowski

Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your “plight” to a person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it.
~Emergency Checklist

Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two of these are always necessary to successfully complete the mission.
The three most useless things in aviation are: Fuel in the bowser; Runway behind you; and Air above you.
~Basic Flight Training Manual

As a test pilot climbs out of an experimental plane having crashed tearing off the wings and tail, crash trucks arrive. A rescuer asks the bloodied pilot, “what happened?” The pilot replies, “I don’t know, I just got here myself!”

A mile of highway will take you a mile, a mile of runway will take you anywhere
~Steve, Blogger from Ohio

At the end of our lives, whether they are terribly short or satisfyingly long, the things we will regret are not what we did, but what we did not do, because we were afraid to try. For us, the risk that some people may associate with flying historic aircraft at airshows is offset by the satisfaction and quality it brings to our lives. 
~Lad Doctor

When a great adventure is offered to you, you don’t refuse it…That’s all.
~Amelia Earhart, aviator

BASIC FLYING RULES:
Try to stay in the middle of the air.
Do not go near the edges of it.
The edges of the air can be recognized by the
appearance of ground, buildings, sea, and trees.
It is much more difficult to fly there.
~W.W.II Undergraduate Pilot Training Sign

If the Wright brothers were alive today,
Wilbur would have to fire Orville to reduce costs.
~Former president of Delta Airlines

If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid
~Naval Flight Ops Manual

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
~Amelia Earhart, aviator

If you hear me yell; “Eject, Eject, Eject!”, the last two will be echoes. If you stop to ask “Why?”, you’ll be talking to yourself, because by then you’ll be the pilot.
~Pre-flight briefing from an F-15 pilot.

The three best things in life are: A good landing, a good orgasm, and, a good bowel movement. The night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities in life where you get to experience all three at the same time.
~Ready room sign, USS Enterprise, 1969, Gulf of Tonkin

You’ve never been lost until you’ve been lost at Mach 3.
~Paul F. Crickmore, SR-71 test pilot

When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane, you always have enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash.
~Multi-Engine Training Manual

If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it; ride the bastard down.
~Ernst K. Gann, author and aviator

What kind of man would live where there is no daring? I don’t believe in taking foolish chances, but nothing can be accomplished without taking any chance at all.
~Charles A. Lindbergh, American aviator

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they easy but because they are hard.
~President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962

Decide…whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.
~Amelia Earhart, aviator

Every generation has the obligation to free men’s minds for a look at new worlds, to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.
~James Lovell, Astronaut

There can be no courage unless you’re scared.
~Eddie Rickenbacker, fighter pilot and business leader

What freedom lies in flying, what Godlike power it gives to men….I lose all consciousness in this strong unmortal space crowded with beauty, pierced with danger.
~Charles A. Lindbergh

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.
~Richard Bach, pilot & American writer

You’ll be bothered from time to time by storms, fog, snow. When you are, think of those who went through it before you, and say to yourself, “What they could do, I can do.”
~ Antoine de Saint Exupery, Wind, Sand, and Stars,’1939.

Flying is like sex – I’ve never had all I wanted but occasionally I’ve had all I could stand.
~Stephen Coonts, author of the Cannibal Queen

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
~George Carlin

You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky.
~Amelia Earhart

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that an airplane takes off into the wind.
~Henry Ford

You love a lot of things if you live around them, but there isn’t any woman and there isn’t any horse, nor any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane.
~Earnest Hemingway, Colliers, 1944

Orville Wright did not have a pilot’s license…think about it.
~Jeff Daniels, actor & song writer

Not all birds can fly. What separates the flyers from the walkers is the ability to take off.
~Carl Sagan (1934 – 1996) Astronomer