“The air is an extremely dangerous, jealous and exacting mistress. Once under the spell most lovers are faithful to the end, which is not always old age. Even those masters and princes of aerial fighting, the survivors of fifty mortal duels in the high air who have come scatheless through the War and all its perils, have returned again and …
Category: Airmanship Quotes
Life Itself
“Accuracy means something to me. It’s vital to my sense of values. I’ve learned not to trust people who are inaccurate. Every aviator knows that if mechanics are inaccurate, aircraft crash. If pilots are inaccurate, they get lost — sometimes killed. In my profession life itself depends on accuracy.” Charles A. Lindbergh, in his 1953 Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography The Spirit …
I Can’t Get No
“I was never satisfied with simply doing well. Even after getting a good result in a test or a flight, if I’d made a mistake I would want to fix that mistake and ensure I got it perfect for the next time. Back in our quarters I would run my own debrief. I’d go through a flight over and over, …
Love Me and Know Me
High risk, high reward, being passionate is a safety attitude, all expressed much better by Richard Bach, from his classic 1974 book A Gift of Wings.
Richard Bach on Flying’s Core
New Richard Bach words on flying! He’s owned 41 planes, flew jets in the USAF, and as West Coast editor of Flying magazine saw loads more. I asked him what’s core to flying them all? “Flying all these aircraft is based on one single prayer that will never come true: Please let me become the sky. From 10 mph in …
Feels Like …
What does flying feel like to you?
Magnifying and Analyzing
Do you fly and say ‘not bad, pretty good‘, or do you fly and then honestly debrief yourself on every action, every decision? Commander Victor Glover became a fighter pilot, test pilot, astronaut by not accepting ‘pretty good’ and going home. (Original photo NASA, at the Houston neutral bounancy tank, 2015. Quote from Mens Health magazine, March 2018)
Danger and Poetry
“In an environment where everything happens so fast and where mistakes can be fatal, survival ultimately depends on how the pilot chooses to direct and divide his attention. Because of the finite nature of attention, underestimating one’s proficiency at any given task can be just as dangerous as overestimating it. ” It’s the start of December, and I think I’ve …
The Now, the Here …
Landing is one of the few moments I feel truly fully present. (Original Photo by Cédric Dhaenens on Unsplash)
Regretful People
Woulda coulda shoulda. Go soar.