Experimental Flight Quotes

When I was fired from my post as General of the Fighter Arm, I was to give proof that this jet was a superior fighter. And that's when we did it. I think we did it.

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

I had to tell somebody, anybody, that we’d busted straight through the sound barrier. But the transmissions were restricted. ‘Hey Ridley!’ I called. ‘Make another note. There’s something wrong with this Machmeter. It’s gone completely screwy!’

They don't hand out Ph.D.s in test piloting, but you pick up a tremendous amount of scientific and engineering knowledge along the way. After all, when you take up a brand new plane and put it through its paces to see if it will hang together, you are really flying somebody's theory.

On the first flight test of any spacecraft, you're going to find surprises.

I spent about seven years during the Vietnam War flight-testing airplanes for the Air Force. And then I went in and I had a lot of fun building airplanes that people could build in their garages. And some 3,000 of those are flying. Of course, one of them is around-the-world Voyager.

I believe that simple flight at least is possible to man and that the experiments and investigations of a large number of independent workers will result in the accumulation of information, knowledge, and skill which will finally lead to accomplished flight.

The experimental plane may well finish up a few fields from the end of the runway. If that is so, the voluntary occupants will have only inflicted bruises or worse upon themselves. But the reverse may occur and the experimental plane soar into the sky.

The first plane ride was in a homemade glider my buddy and I built. Unfortunately we didn't get more than four feet off the ground, because it crashed.

Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested.

We were flying on a winged vehicle that would do reentry different than we had ever done before. So all of those were firsts. Test pilots truly love firsts.

In our gliding experiments we had had a number of experiences in which we had landed upon one wing, but the crushing of the wing had absorbed the shock, so that we were not uneasy about the motor in case of a landing of that kind.