Aerial Navigation Quotes

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.

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

As soon as we left the ground, I knew I had to fly.

Nonsense. Space is blue and birds fly through it.

I was three over. One over a house, one over a patio, and one over a swimming pool.

A bird maintains itself in the air by imperceptible balancing, when near to the mountains or lofty ocean crags; it does this by means of the curves of the winds which as they strike against these projections, being forced to preserve their first impetus bend their straight course towards the sky with divers revolutions, at the beginning of which the birds come to a stop with their wings open, receiving underneath themselves the continual buffetings of the reflex courses of the winds.

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.

I decided that if I could fly for ten years before I was killed in a crash, it would be a worthwhile trade for an ordinary life time.

My plan was to land in Red Square, but there were too many people and I thought I'd cause casualties.

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!

Flying is more than a sport and more than a job; flying is pure passion and desire, which fill a lifetime.

I was sold on flying as soon as I had a taste for it.

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.

Flying solo, you have a fair workload. I'm not only flying the balloon but doing the navigation, communications, repairing the burners, taking care of the equipment.

I feel at home up in the air, just like sailors do at sea and climbers do in the mountains.

The people of Sydney who can speak of my work [on flying-machine models] without a smile are very scarce; it is doubtless the same with American workers. I know that success is dead sure to come, and therefore do not waste time and words in trying to convince unbelievers.

I don't want a be bird because birds get attacked too much. But it would be cool to fly.

If there be one man, more than another, who deserves to succeed in flying through the air, that man is Mr. Laurence Hargrave, of Sydney, New South Wales.

Now listen, buddy, there are a few corny ideas you got to get out of your head if you're going to fly an airplane. Most things are just the reverse from what people think. The higher you are the safer you are. The Earth down there, that, that-s your enemy because once you hit that, boy, you splatter.

Sir, Your letter of the 15th is received, but Age has long since obliged me to withhold my mind from Speculations of the difficulty of those of your letter, that their are means of artificial buoyancy by which man may be supported in the Air, the Balloon has proved, and that means of directing it may be discovered is against no law of Nature and is therefore possible as in the case of Birds, but to do this by mechanical means alone in a medium so rare and unassisting as air must have the aid of some principal not yet generally known.

The butterfly, a cabbage-white, (His honest idiocy of flight) Will never now, it is too late, Master the art of flying straight.

A falcon hovers at the edge of the sky.Two gulls drift slowly up the river.Vulnerable while they ride the wind,they coast and glide with ease.Dew is heavy on the grass below,the spider's web is ready.Heaven's ways include the human:among a thousand sorrows, I stand alone.

This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed, buoyant extroverts, and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to.

Somebody said that carrier pilots were the best in the world, and they must be or there wouldn't be any of them left alive.

I had no need of sails to drive me, nor oars nor wheels to push me, nor rails to give me a faster road. Air is what I wanted, that was all. Air surrounds me as water surrounds the submarine boat, and in it my propellers act like the screws of a steamer. That is how I solved the problem of aviation. That is what a balloon will never do, nor will any machine that is lighter than air.