Inspirational aviation quotes will encourage you to think a little deeper than you usually would and broaden your perspective.
Famous Aviation Quotes
To most people, the sky is the limit. To those who love aviation, the sky is home. – Jerry Crawford
If you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing. If you can use the aircraft the next day, it’s an outstanding landing. – Chuck Yeager
The highest art form of all is a human being in control of himself and his airplane in flight, urging the spirit of a machine to match his own. – Richard Bach
Until you spread your wings, you have no idea how far you’ll fly. – unknown
Lovers of air travel find it exhilarating to hang poised between the illusion of immortality and the fact of death. – Alexander Chase
A pilot who says he has never been frightened in an airplane is, I’m afraid, lying. – Louise Thaden
Sometimes, flying feels too godlike to be attained by man. Sometimes, the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see. – Charles A. Lindbergh
The pilot who teaches himself has a fool for a student. – unknown
Aviation is proof that given the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible. – Eddie Rickenbacker
Great pilots are made not born… A man may possess good eyesight, sensitive hands, and perfect coordination, but the end result is only fashioned by steady coaching, much practice, and experience. – unknown
Aviation has struck a delicately balanced world, a world where stability was already giving way to the pressure of new dynamic forces, a world dominated by a mechanical, materialist, Western European civilization. – Charles Lindbergh
Don’t be a show-off. Never be too proud to turn back. There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots. – unknown
Fly and you will catch the swallow. – James Howell
Mistakes are inevitable in aviation, especially when one is still learning new things. The trick is to not make the mistake that will kill you. – Stephen Coonts
If you’re ever faced with a forced landing at night, turn on the landing lights to see the landing area. If you don’t like what you see, turn’ em back off. – unknown
Aviation is a dynamic profession. The rate of obsolescence of equipment is high and new aircraft have to be placed in inventory periodically in order to stay abreast of the requirements of modern war. – Keith B. McCutcheon
There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. – unknown
Pilots take no special joy in walking. Pilots like flying. – Neil Armstrong
In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose. – unknown
Aviation records don’t fall until someone is willing to mortgage the present for the future. – Amelia Earhart
In flying, you need at least two of these three to stay alive: altitude, speed or brains. – unknown
The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space on the infinite highway of the air. – Wilbur Wrigh
If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it; ride the bastard down. – Ernest K.
Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description. – Barry Goldwater
I think it is a pity to lose the romantic side of flying and simply to accept it as a common means of transport. – Amy Johnson
Flying was a very tangible freedom. In those days, it was beauty, adventure, discovery the epitome of breaking into new worlds. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The good thing about flying solo is it’s never boring. – Steve Fossett
Aviation is the branch of engineering that is least forgiving of mistakes. – Freeman Dyson
In combat flying, fancy precision aerobatic work is really not of much use. Instead, it is the rough maneuver which succeeds. – Erich Hartmann
More than anything else, the sensation of flying is one of perfect peace mingled with an excitement that strains every nerve to the utmost. If you can conceive of such a combination. – Wilbur Wright
Flying is more than a sport and more than a job; flying is pure passion and desire, which fill a lifetime. – Adolf Galland
Every flyer who ventures across oceans to distant lands is a potential explorer; in his or her breast burns the same fire that urged adventurers of old to set forth in their sailing-ships for foreign lands. – Jean Batten
Aviation constituted a new and possibly decisive element in preventing or fighting a war, and I was in a unique position to observe European aviation especially in its military aspects. – Charles Lindbergh
Sometimes you have to go up really high to see how small you are. – Felix Baumgartner
Flying prevails whenever a man and his airplane are put to a test of maximum performance. – Richard Bach
Aviation is going to control the world economically and militarily whether we like it or not. Airpower is not merely military aviation, it is also civilian aviation and airpower is peace power. – Roscoe Turne
Flying might not be all smooth sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price. – Amelia Earhart
Aviation is fine as a sport. But as an instrument of war, it is worthless. – Ferdinand Foch
Do the impossible, because almost everyone has told me my ideas are merely fantasies. – Howard Hughes
Aviation will give new nourishment to the religious sprit of mankind. It will add airspace to those other great heighteners of the cosmic mood: the wood, the sea, the desert. – Christian Morgenstern
The most effective way to do it, is to do it. – Amelia Earhart
Aeronautics was neither an industry nor a science. It was a miracle. – Igor Sikorsky
If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance. – Orville Wright
The exhilaration of flying is too keen, the pleasure too great, for it to be neglected as a sport. – Orville Wright
Flying is a lot like playing a musical instrument; you’re doing so many things and thinking of so many other things, all at the same time. It becomes a spiritual experience. – Dusty Mctavish
Men become wise just as they become rich, more by what they save than by what they receive. – Wilbur Wright
The fundamental magic of flying, a miracle that has nothing to do with any of its practical purposes purposes of speed, accessibility, and convenience and will not change as they change. – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over. – Richard Branson
In referance to flying through thunderstorms; A pilot may earn his full pay for that year in less than two minutes. At the time of incident, he would gladly return the entire amount for the privilege of being elsewhere. – Ernest K. Gann
In one fell swoop, we have shrunken the earth. – Juan Trippe
I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
It’s so important to experience what your customers are experiencing and listen to their suggestions. – David Neeleman
Never quit. Never give up. Fly it to the end. – Chuck Aaron
It is hard enough for anyone to map out a course of action and stick to it, particularly in the face of the desires of one’s friends; but it is doubly hard for an aviator to stay on the ground waiting for just the right moment to go into the air. – Glenn Curtiss
The only characteristic all airliners share is that upon proper urging they are normally capable of leaving the earth’s surface. – Ernest K. Gann
Flight is the only truly new sensation than men have achieved in modern history. – James Dickey
It is as though we have grown wings, which thanks to Providence, we have learnt to control. – Louis Bréliot
In aviation they have auto pilot and color radar and a lot of other instrumentation that is a backup for pilots. It’s really brought the incidents of plane crashes way down. Same thing ought to happen in the medical industry, I think. – Dennis Quaid
