Aviation Truisms.

[YaKs are BeSt]

Here is an email that I got. I though it just might be worth posting since it is good for a small chuckle.



"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never
encountered automatic weapons."
- General MacArthur

"You, you, and you ... Panic. The rest of you, come with me."
- U.S. Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt.

"Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death . I Shall Fear No Evil. For
I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing."
- At the entrance to the old SR-71 operating base Kadena, Japan

"You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3."
- Paul F. Crickmore (test pilot)

"The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire."

"Blue water Navy truism: There are more planes in the ocean than
submarines in the sky."
- From an old carrier sailor

"If the wings are traveling faster than the fuselage, it's probably a
helicopter -- and therefore, unsafe."

"When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane you always have
enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash."

"Without ammunition, the USAF would be just another expensive flying
club."
"What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If
a pilot screws up, the pilot dies;
If ATC screws up, the pilot dies."

"Never trade luck for skill."

The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in aviation
are:
1. "Why is it doing that?"
2. "Where are we?"
3. and "OH S___!!!"

"Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers."

"Progress in airline flying: now a flight attendant can get a pilot
pregnant."

"Airspeed, altitude and brains. Two are always needed to successfully
complete the flight."

"A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a
row is prevarication."

"I remember when sex was safe and flying was dangerous."

"Mankind has a perfect record in aviation; we never left one up
there!"

"Flashlights are tubular metal containers kept in a flight bag for the
purpose of storing dead batteries."

"Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a
person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about
it."

"When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something was
forgotten."

"Just remember, if you crash because of weather, your funeral will be
held on a sunny day."

Advice given to RAF pilots during WWII: "When a prang (crash) seems
inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the
vicinity as slow and gently as possible."

"The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just barely
kill you."
- Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot)

"A pilot who doesn't have any fear probably isn't flying his plane to
its maximum."
- Jon McBride, astronaut

"If you're faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the
crash as possible."
- Bob Hoover (renowned aerobatic and test pilot)

"Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you."

"There is no reason to fly through a thunderstorm in peacetime."
- Sign over squadron ops desk at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, 1970

"If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to."

"You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes full
power to taxi to the terminal."

Basic Flying Rules:
"Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go near the edges of it.
The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground,
buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is much more difficult
to fly there."

[Kiwi]

OH Boy,

So many of those are true to the bone.

I used to work on the theory that if I did not get a scare a month in full scale I was too relaxed and the next one might be more than a scare. You better beleive it.

Kiwi

[GremlinX]

A lot of truth in some of them...

[xcellflyer]

Deadstick: Two of those can be found on an improperly charged transmitter.

Cyanoacrylate: Special glue, designed to instantly glue fingers to balsa structures-instantly curing when parts are misaligned.

CG: The point at when G-forces dedicated to seperating wing from fuselage, do their stuff.

Fuel Tank: Plastic bottle, designed to leak when placed in totally inaccesable locations.

Nosewheel: Implement used to remove firewall.

Flying wing: To be seen after too tight of a loop.

[ShortBus]

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society.
The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the
parachute."--- George Bernard Shaw

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