# Great aviation quotes **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 11, 2010, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701 "2010-04-11T04:30:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/21 "2010-04-12T04:09:52Z")
Emergency! We need altitude. Open the side door and start throwing cargo out. Ok, we made it! My Dad’s story about riding in an overloaded cargo plane that was going to hit a mountain in Korea. They threw out the cargo and just barely made altitude to get over the mountain. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/22 "2010-04-12T04:11:20Z")
From a friend of mine: All plane crashes have the same cause. A lack of ground clearance. ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/23 "2010-04-12T04:16:02Z")
A local chicken wing place is called “The Wing Stop”. They’ve got a poster with an anonymous quote (I guess?) from World War II: “Two turnin’ and two burnin’ - and flak so thick you could walk on it.” Yeah, I could imagine there’d be circumstances where you’d look a little wistfully out the window and wonder for just a moment whether it just might be better to get out and walk… but only for a moment, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/24 "2010-04-12T04:43:41Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > This is a very annoying line, and I wish it would die. > Flying IS dangerous - you are operating at heights and speeda inconsistant with survival (yes, that is stolen from someone) if damned near anything goes wrong - and things are noted for going wrong. > Fly all you want - skill and training will get you through (probably). Just don’t think it isn’t dangerous! I disagree. Yes, things can go wrong. But it’s not like in the movies where if you sneeze you explode. A great deal of training is in emergency situations and how to avoid them. I feel safer in an aircraft than I do in a car. Last time I checked, only one crash in five resulted in a fatality, and crashes are very rare. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/25 "2010-04-12T04:50:14Z")
> [@Civil\_Guy](#): > > “Two turnin’ and two burnin’…” How about ‘six turning and four burning’? From the [Convair B-36](http://home.flash.net/~mzinkand/b36/), which operated from 1949 to 1959. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/26 "2010-04-12T04:59:37Z")
Some one once described a piston air craft to me this way: Thousands of bits of metal arranged in a particular way, so that when you set off a series of explosions inside them, the pieces bounce off each other in just such a fashion that the entire assembly moves through the air. Now if that ain’t witchcraft, I don’t know what is. Don’t know if it was original to him, and I kind of doubt it. Tris ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/27 "2010-04-12T06:16:01Z")
A marginally aviation-related quote. Aboard the carrier Yorktown in the closing months of the war, besieged by kamikaze attacks, a gunner who had seen action around Guadalcanal earlier in the war described the kamikazes: “The Solomons in all their glory had not a raid like one of these!” (Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.) ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/28 "2010-04-12T06:42:21Z")
Try to keep your number of landings equal to your number of takeoffs. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/29 "2010-04-12T06:45:01Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > I disagree. > > … > > Last time I checked, only one crash in five resulted in a fatality, and crashes are very rare. NTSB - 4/12/2009 - 4/12/2010: Accidents, NOT incidents: Non-fatal: 1186 Fatal: 342 All aircraft types, all operations ---
**Author:** ![figure9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@figure9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/figure9)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/30 "2010-04-12T11:41:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Close. Battle of the Coral Sea, before Midway: “Scratch one flattop!” It was the sinking of the Shoho. See here: Thanks for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/31 "2010-04-12T12:41:11Z")
The only time you have too much fuel is when you are on fire. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/32 "2010-04-12T12:44:49Z")
Here’s one that’s not directly about aviation, unless you know who said it: “Humans are the best value in computers. Where else can you get a non-linear computer weighing only about 160 pounds, having a billion binary decision elements, that can be mass-produced by unskilled labor?” Scott Crossfield ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/33 "2010-04-12T12:46:23Z")
Before flying in a DeHavilland Beaver (radial engine), the advice was to “fill it up with oil and check the gas.” ---
**Author:** ![Booker57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Booker57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Booker57)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/34 "2010-04-12T13:00:55Z")
All aircraft eventualy land. Booker’s first flight was in a Piper PA 11.Over 30 years ago. Fond memories. Thanks Brian. ---
**Author:** ![RalfCoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@RalfCoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RalfCoder)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/35 "2010-04-12T13:41:27Z")
> [@Triskadecamus](#): > > Some one once described a piston air craft to me this way: > > Thousands of bits of metal arranged in a particular way, so that when you set off a series of explosions inside them, the pieces bounce off each other in just such a fashion that the entire assembly moves through the air. Now if that ain’t witchcraft, I don’t know what is. > > Don’t know if it was original to him, and I kind of doubt it. > > Tris Can’t remember where I saw it, but I remember something similar about a helicopter: it’s the only kind of flying machine that tries to fling its various bits and pieces over a large area without having to crash first. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/36 "2010-04-12T13:56:11Z")
_Helicopters are inherently unstable._ I don’t know who said it, but it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/37 "2010-04-12T13:57:18Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > How about ‘six turning and four burning’? From the [Convair B-36](http://home.flash.net/~mzinkand/b36/), which operated from 1949 to 1959. Later “Three turning, three burning, two joking, and two smoking”. “As a pilot, there are only two bad things that can happen to you, and someday one of them will. You can walk out to the airplane knowing it’s your last flight. Or you can walk out to the airplane NOT knowing it’s your last flight.” ---
**Author:** ![RalfCoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@RalfCoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RalfCoder)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/38 "2010-04-12T14:02:54Z")
Another that just came to me: “If you lose an engine on takeoff while flying a multi-engine aircraft, you may have just enough power left to get to the scene of the crash”. And a bad joke: The FAA requires every pilot to take a periodic checkflight. So one day the flight examiner showed up at the North Pole, and he and Santa went out to the sleigh. After reviewing Santa’s paperwork, inspecting the aircraft, and reviewing the flight plan, Santa and the examiner got into the sleigh and prepared to get underway. The examiner rested a shotgun against the seat. Santa asked, “What’s that for?” The examiner said, “I’m not supposed to tell you ahead of time, but you’re gonna lose an engine on takeoff” ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/39 "2010-04-12T14:05:02Z")
On 9/11 the flight controllers did not know what to fo. When the order was issued to land all planes, someone asked in a stunned voice “Are we gicing the planes the option to land?” The reply was “You get those fucking planes out of that fucking sky.” ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701/40 "2010-04-12T14:30:26Z")
For those of you who can’t get enough aviation quotes I recommend the following website: [Great Aviation Quotes at Skygod.com](http://www.skygod.com/quotes/) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-aviation-quotes/535701.md?page=3)