Basic Flying Rules:

1. Try to stay in the middle of the air.

2. Do not go near the edges of it.

3. The edges of the air can be recognized by the appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees, wires, and interstellar space.

It is much more difficult to fly there.



Every take off is optional.

Every landing is mandatory.



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It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as much as possible.

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It's always better to be down here wishing you were up there, than up there wishing you were down here.



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



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Learn from the mistakes of others.

You won’t live long enough to make them all yourself.



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You start off with a big bag of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you run out of luck.



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Somebody said that carrier pilots were the best in the world.

And they must be or there wouldn’t be any of them left alive.

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Heard over Tower Radio at Bagotville, Quebec, Canada.

First voice:"Roger, I'm holding at 3,000 feet over Bagot Beacon."

Second voice:"You can't be doing that. I'm holding over Bagot Beacon at 3,000 feet."

Long pause.

First voice: "You idiot. You're my copilot."



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"The Five Most Dangerous Things in the US Navy"

1.) A Seaman saying, "I learned this in Boot Camp..."

2.) A Petty Officer saying, "Trust me, sir..."

3.) A Lieutenant JG saying, "Based on my experience..."

4.) A Lieutenant saying, "I was just thinking..."

5.) A Chief chuckling, "Watch this shit..."



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After several unsuccessful attempts to raise the pilot whom the tower has just issued instructions to: "You have to key the mic...I can't see you when you nod your head..."

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Without ammunition the USAF would be just another expensive flying club.

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Letter from a sailor's girlfriend:

Dear John, I couldn’t wait any longer, so I married your Dad.

Love, Mom



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All those forward, move aft.

All those aft move, forward.

All those amidships, mill around and direct traffic.

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

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Blue water Navy truism: There are more planes in the ocean than there are submarines in the sky.

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Never trade luck for skill.

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The three most common expressions (or famous last words) in aviation are: "Why is it doing that?", "Where are we?" and "Oh, crap"!

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Weather forecasts are horoscopes with numbers.

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

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A smooth landing is mostly luck; two in a row is all luck; three in a row is an outright lie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Advice given to RAF pilots during W.W.II. When a prang seems inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the vicinity as slowly and as gently as possible.

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

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





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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)

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If an airplane is still in one piece, don't cheat on it; ride the bastard down. (Ernest K. Gann , author & aviator)

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Though I Fly Through the Valley of Death I Shall Fear No Evil For I am at 80,000 Feet and Climbing (sign over the entrance to the SR-71 operating location Kadena, Japan).

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

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

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

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"Now I know what a dog feels like watching TV." (DC-9 captain trainee attempting to check out on the 'glass cockpit' of an A-320).

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What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots? If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies; If the ATC screws up, the pilot dies.

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

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Student pilot to irate instructor: "Think about it. I navigated through a boiling fluid swirling around a rotating sphere that is hurtling around a fusion reaction source at thousands of miles per hour. This system is moving in a circular motion around a black hole at who knows what speed, while the space it takes up is expanding. And I bounced 6 inches. 6 MEASLY INCHES! You need to get off my back, man"

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Two "AO"s (BB stackers) were required to measure the height of a flag pole. They only had a measuring tape, and were getting quite frustrated trying to keep the tape along the pole. It kept falling down.

An "AT" (Twidget or Tweet) comes along, discovers their problem. He then proceeds to remove the pole from the ground, lay it down, and then measures it easily.

As he leaves, the first "AO" says to the second one, "Just like a Tweet! We need to know the height, and he gives us the length!"



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What is the difference between a duck and a copilot? The duck can fly.

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Speed is life. Altitude is life insurance.

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It only takes two things to fly, airspeed and money.

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What are the two most dangerous things in aviation? A Doctor in a Bonanza and two Chief pilots in a DC-9.

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It's better to break ground and head into the wind than to break wind and head into the ground.

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What is the difference between flight attendants and jet engines? The engines quit wining when they get to the gate.

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I give that landing a 7 on the Richter scale.

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Landing Signal Officer to a carrier pilot after his 6th unsuccessful landing attempt: "You've got to land here, son; this is where the food is".

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The pilot was sitting in his seat and pulled out a .38 revolver.

He placed it on top of the instrument panel, and then asked the navigator, "Do you know what I use this for?"

The navigator replied timidly, "No, what's it for?"

The pilot responded, "I use this on navigators who get me lost!"

The navigator proceeded to pull out a .45 and place it on his chart table. The pilot asked, "What's that for?"

"To be honest sir," the navigator replied, "I'll know we're lost before you will."

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

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Tower: "Delta 351, you have traffic at 10 o'clock, 6 miles!"

Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"

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One day, the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee.

Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said, What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"

The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I ll have enough parts for another one."

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There's a story about the military pilot calling for a priority landing, because his single-engine jet fighter was running "a bit peaked". Air Traffic Control told the fighter jock that he was number two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.

"Ah", the fighter pilot remarked, "The dreaded Seven-Engine approach".

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A student became lost during a solo cross-country flight. While attempting to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked, "What was your last known position?"

Student: "When I was number one for takeoff".

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Taxiing down the tarmac, the DC10 abruptly stopped, turned around and returned to the gate. After an hour-long wait, it finally took off. A concerned passenger asked the flight attendant, "What, exactly, was the problem?"

"The pilot was bothered by a noise he heard in the engine," explained the flight attendant. "It took us a while to find a new pilot."

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"TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 Degrees."

"Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?"

"Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"

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An A320 Air France is making an auto-approach. At 200', the computer decided to make a go-around for no apparent reason and no command from the crew.

Here is what we heard on the TWR freq:

Air France: London from Air France 1234, It's going around!

London TWR: Air France 1234, report intentions.

Air France: Well ... to go with it sir !

"What is the difference between a duck and a copilot? The duck can fly" was actually among the last words recorded on a CVR before a crash.

During a final approach at night, the copilot nervously pointed out a couple of times that the altitude/airspeed did not seem right to him, to which the captain started joking with the engineer over copilots' inexperience in general, and told him the joke about copilots and ducks.

Shortly after that, they crashed...

The tape was part of real-life material they gave us in cockpit resources management courses.

And there is this classic:

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

The Three Most Useless Things (Fighter Pilot's Perspective)

1. Fuel in the Tanker.

2. Runway behind you.

3. Altitude above you.


Barstooler

This is the procedure for doing a engine out landing at night:

As you approach the ground at max glide airspeed, turn on the landing light. If you like what you see, keep it on. If you don't like what you see, turn it off.