Some new aviation sayings for the pilots ....

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

AVIATION TRUISMS

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline baggage.

An old pilot is one who can remember when flying was dangerous and sex was safe.

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society.
The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute.

If helicopters are so safe, how come there are no vintage/classic helicopter fly-ins.

Death is just nature’s way of telling you to watch your airspeed.

Real planes use only a single stick to fly. This is why bulldozers & helicopters – in that order – need two.

There are only three things the copilot should ever say:

  1. Nice landing, Sir.
  2. I’ll buy the first round.
  3. I’ll take the ugly one.

As a pilot, only two bad things can happen to you:
a. One day you will walk out to the aircraft knowing that it is your last flight.
b. One day you will walk out to the aircraft not knowing that it is your last flight.

There are Rules and there are Laws.
The Rules are made by men who think that they know better how to fly your airplane than you.
Laws (of Physics) were made by the Great One.
You can, and sometimes should, suspend the Rules, but you can never suspend the Laws.
About Rules:
a. The rules are a good place to hide if you don’t have a better idea and the talent to execute it.
b. If you deviate from a rule, it must be a flawless performance. ( e.g., if you fly under a bridge, don’t hit the bridge.)

The medical profession is the natural enemy of the aviation profession.

Flying is a great way of life for men who want to feel like boys, but not for those who still are.

Flying is a hard way to earn an easy living.

Forget all that stuff about lift, gravity, thrust and drag.
An airplane flies because of money.
If God had meant man to fly, He’d have given him more money.

It’s not that all airplane pilots are good-looking. Just that good-looking
people seem more capable of flying airplanes.

I’ve flown in both pilot seats, can someone tell me why the other one is always occupied by an idiot?

Wheelbarrows were invented to teach FAA inspectors to walk on their hind legs.

New FAA Motto: “We’re not happy 'till you’re not happy.”

2

Take-offs are optional; landings are mandatory.

3

There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots. There are no old bold pilots.

4

There three most useless things a pilot can have are:

  1. Runway behind him
  2. Altitude above him
  3. Gas that is still in the tanks back at the airport.

To go along with #3 the only time you have too much fuel is when you are on fire.

Always try to fly in the middle of the air. It is much safer there. The edges of the air can be recognized by the presence of the ground, houses, mountains, the ocean, and outer space.

I have heard tell there are three secrets to a perfect landing. No one knows what they are.

5

Wartime : it is inadvisable to eject over an area that you have just bombed.

6

If you can walk away, it was a good landing.

If they can still use the airplane, it was a great landing.

You can always tell when you landed gear up, because it takes full power to taxi.

If you lose your engine(s) at night, set up for a glide and turn on your landing lights exactly 50 feet before reaching the ground. If you like what you see, go ahead and land. If you don’t like what you see, turn the lights back off.

Flight instructors should not teach spins after lunch. (trust me on this one)

When the engine quits, try to hit the softest, cheapest thing you can find.

That propellor up front is really just a big fan to keep the pilot cool. If you don’t believe me, just watch him sweat when it quits turning. :wink:

7

This is absolutely hilarious. Great thread.
The only one I don’t get is

I’m sure it’s droll and esoteric but I’ve never heard about it before.

8

You need a Medical Certificate to be legal to fly. A ‘medical’ certifies that you can see and hear, and probably won’t keel over at the stick. So going to the Airmans Medical Examiner will result in one of two things: Either you can keep flying, or you can’t. That is, either things stay the same (no gain), or you ‘lose youe medical’ (loss).

9

Hey! :mad: :dubious:

10

Heard from ‘Pops’ Mercotan, after our crash: “Son, we ran out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas all at the same time”.

11

(I landed a little helicopter in a field once, I had a chip light on the transmission. I was fine. Learned something though. Cows can in fact run.)

12

My uncle Stan took my dad up in his small plane. Dad was trying to pretend he wasn’t scared. When Stan landed, he turned to Dad and said, “Well, we cheated death again.” Dad never liked him after that. I found out years later that Stan said that after every landing. :stuck_out_tongue:

13

Could have been worse. While they were still high in the air Uncle Stan could have said thoughtfully, ‘You know? I could kill us both right now.’ :smiley:

14

That is so true now that I think about it. You have thousands of airplanes visiting fly-in’s every year. Many date to the 1940’s or even older. Where are the equivalent helicopter outings? In there defense, I have seen one or two in the pictures so it must be possible to keep a helicopter flying for more than a few years even if it is very unlikely.

It is easy to make a small fortune in aviation. You just have to start with a very large fortune…

15

There are a lot more fixed-wings made than there are helicopters made. It wasn’t until 1942 that a helicopter went into full-scale production, and then there were only a couple/few hundred made. How many fixed-wings were made in 1942? The Bell 47 entered service in 1946. There were fewer than 6,000 made from its inception until 1974. In the late-1970s there were close to 15,000 fixed-wing aircraft made in the U.S. every year. So it’s not surprising that you haven’t seen any pre-1940 helicopters. The number of helicopters compaired to fixed-wings is why you generally don’t see helicopter fly-ins around the country. (Not to mention that helicopters are not designed for long cross-countries, they’re expensive to buy and they’re expensive to own.)

I’ve actually seen a fair number of Bell 47s flying around, or in airworthy condition on the ramp.

There’s a place in SoCal that collects old helicopters. They flew a Piasecki H-21 to the Chino Airshow last year.

16

In an emergency, you don’t rise to the occasion - you sink to the level of your training.

17

Old pilots never die. They just buzz off.

18

Told to me by my flight instructor:

“What goes up, must come down…what comes down had damned well better be able to go back up again.”

Seen in numerous small airplane cockpits: “Pilot’s Guarantee - if my ass gets there in one piece, so does yours.”

Aircraft fly by moving a mass of air in a downwards direction.
Helicopters fly by beating the air into submission.
Vertol Chinooks fly because they are so ugly the ground repels them.

<said during the cold war>

Question: “How do you get your own F-104 Starfighter?”
Answer: “Buy a piece of land in Germany and wait.”

(the F-104 was intended as a high-altitude interceptor, but was flown in a low-level mission profile in Germany by Canada among others. The F-104 has itty bitty wings, and if the engine quits you turn into a lawn dart. A number of them did just that.)

19

Sign above an airport urinal:

Notice to Airmen: Pilots with short pitot tubes or low manifold pressure please taxi close.

20

You can land anywhere on earth… once.

It’s better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than in the air wishing you were on the ground!