Ol' Buffalo Aviation Page

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you're reading this in English, thank a veteran.

Aviation Quotes

Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. — Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre

Airplanes will be used in sport. But they are not to be thought of as commercial carriers. — Octave Chanute, 1904

Air power can either paralyze the enemy's military action or compel him to devote to the defense of his bases and communications a share of his straitened resources far greater that what we need in the attack. — Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British Statesman, Soldier

All who are practically concerned with aerial navigation agree that the safety of the operator is more important to successful experimentation than any other point. The history of past investigation demonstrates that greater prudence is needed rather than greater skill. Only a madman would propose taking greater risks than the great constructors of earlier times. — Wilbur Wright, 1901

Any pilot can describe the mechanics of flying. What it can do for the spirit of man is beyond description. — Barry M. Goldwater, US Senator

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

Arguing with a pilot is like wrestling with a pig in the mud, after a while you begin to think the pig likes it. — Seen on a General Dynamics bulletin board

As far as sinking a ship with a bomb is concerned, you just can't do it. — Rear Adm. Clark Woodward, US Navy, 1939

As I hurtled through space, one thought kept crossing my mind: Every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder. — John Glenn, Astronaught

Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous. But to an even greater degree than the sea, it is terribly unforgiving of any carelessness, incapacity or neglect. — Captain A. G. Lamplugh, British Aviation Insurance Group, London. c. early 1930's

Aviation is proof that given, the will, we have the capacity to achieve the impossible. — Edward Rickenbacker (1890-1973) US war hero and airline executive

Below 20, boys are too rash for flying; above 25, they are too prudent. — W.J. Abbot

By far the greater number of aeroplane accidents are due to precisely the same circumstances that have caused previous accidents. A distressing feature of these accidents is the evidence they afford of the unwillingness, or the inability, of many pilots to profit from the experiences and mistakes of others. — Gustav Hamel and Charles C. Turner, Flying: Some Practical Experiences. Published posthumously in 1914

Construction of an aerial vehicle which can carry even a single man...requires the discovery of some new metal or force. Even with such a discovery, we could not expect one to do more than carry its owner. — Simon Newcomb, US astronomer, 1903

Dad, I left my heart up there. — Francis Gary Powers, CIA U-2 pilot, describing his first flight at age 14

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

Flying is a hard way to earn an easy living. — Author Unknown

Flying is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for the money. — Author Unknown

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. — Author Unknown

For those determined to fly, having no wings is just a little detail. — Jane Lee Logan

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. — Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895

I can't imagine a set of circumstances that would produce Chapter 11 for Eastern. — Frank Lorenzo

I do not think that a flight across the Atlantic will be made in our time, and in our time I include the youngest readers. — Charles Rolls (co-founder Rolls-Royce), 1908

I don't understand all I know about this thing. — Joe May

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

If at first you don't succeed, well, so much for skydiving. — Henry Youngman

If black boxes survive air crashes -- why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff? — George Carlin

If God had intended us to fly he would have made it easier to get to the airport. — Jonathan Winters

I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things. — Antoine de St.-Exupery

If the Wright brothers were alive today Wilber would have to fire Orville to reduce costs. — Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines, USA Today, June 8, 1994

If we die, we want people to accept it. We hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life. — Astronaut Gus Grissom

If you are looking for perfect safety, you will do well to sit on a fence and watch the birds; but if you really wish to learn, you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial. — Wilbur Wright, from an address to the Western Society of Engineers in Chicago, 18 Sep 1901

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

In flying I have learned that carelessness and overconfidence are usually far more dangerous than deliberately accepted risks. — Wilbur Wright in a letter to his father, September 1900

I now know the color of fear. It's brown. — Anonymous skydiver.

Instrument flying is an unnatural act probably punishable by God. — Gordon Baxter

International flying is a hard way to earn an easy living. — Author Unknown

In the Alaska bush I'd rather have a two hour bladder and three hours of gas than vice versa. — Kurt Wien

It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago was thought to hold the solution [to the flying machine problem] have been exhausted and we must turn elsewhere. — Thomas Edison, 1895

It is easy to make a small fortune in aviation as long as you start with a large fortune. — Author Unknown

It is highly unlikely that an airplane, or a fleet of them, could ever sink a fleet of navy vessels under battle conditions. — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1922

It is significant that despite the claims of air enthusiasts, no battleship has yet been sunk by bombs. — Army-Navy football game program, 1941

It's a good landing if you can still get the doors open. — Author Unknown

It's not that all airplane pilots are good-looking. Just that good-looking people seem more capable of flying airplanes. Or so seasoned observers contend. A matter of self-confidence? No doubt, no doubt. — Mike Mailway, a.k.a. L.M. Boyd

It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane. — Charles Lindbergh

I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine. — Caskie Stinnett

It used to be that flying was dangerous and sex was safe; now it's the other way around. — Author Unknown

I've flown every seat on this airplane, can someone tell me why the other two are always occupied by idiots? — Don Taylor

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress. — Captain Eric Moody, British Airways, passenger PA after flying through volcanic ash in a B-747

Lady, you want me to answer you if this old airplane is safe to fly? Just how in the world do you think it got to be this old? — Author Unknown

Landing and moving around the moon offers so many serious problems for human beings that it may take science another 200 years to lick them. — Science Digest, August 1948

[Man will never reach the moon] regardless of all future scientific advances. — Dr. Lee DeForest (inventor of audion tube), 1957

Man will not fly for 50 years. — Wilbur Wright, 1901

Mix ignorance with arrogance at low altitude and the results are almost guaranteed to be spectacular. — Bruce Landsberg, Executive Director of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation

Never feel sorry for anyone who owns an airplane. — Tina Marie

Nobody who gets too relaxed builds up much flying time. — Ernest K. Gann, The Black Watch

No matter how many times we have landed or taken a machine up into the air, we can never afford to do it half awake, or by habit. — Richard Bach

On any given day, I can get one half the workers to kill the other half. — Robber Baron Jay Gould on the eve of an unsuccessful strike against his Southwestern System (Missouri Pacific Railroad) in 1876

Once you get hooked on the airline business, it's worse than dope. — Ed Acker, while Chairman of Air Florida

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. — Helen Keller

Only pilots know why the birds sing. — Author Unknown

Out of 10,000 feet of fall, always remember that the last half inch hurts the most. — Captain Charles W. Purcell, 1932

People who invest in aviation are the biggest suckers in the world. — David G. Neeleman, after raising a record $128 million to start JetBlue, quoted in 'Business Week,' 3 May 1999

Pilots take no special joy in walking. Pilots like flying. — Neil Armstrong, Astronaught

Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools. — New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work, 1921

Rule books are paper; they will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal. — Ernest K. Gann, Fate is the Hunter"

Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests. — Epicurus (341-270 BC)

Son, you're going to have to make up your mind about growing up and becoming a pilot. You can't do both. — Author Unknown

Space travel is utter bilge. — Dr. Richard van der Root Wooley (British astronomer), 1956

The air is an extremely dangerous, jealous and exacting mistress. Once under the spell most lovers are faithful to the end, which is not always old age. Even those masters and princes of aerial fighting, the survivors of fifty mortal duels in the high air who have come scatheless through the War and all its perils, have returned again and again to their love and perished too often in some ordinary commonplace flight undertaken for pure amusement. — Sir Winston Churchill, 'In The Air,' Thoughts and Adventures, 1932

The airplane is not capable of unlimited magnification. It is not likely that it will carry more than five or seven passengers. High speed monoplanes will carry even less. — Waldman Kaempfort (Managing Editor Scientific American), 1913

The danger? But danger is one of the attractions of flight. — Jean Conneau, 1911

The exhilaration of flying is too keen, the pleasure too great, for it to be neglected as a sport. — Orville Wright

The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down. — General Chuck Yeager, USAF, describing his first confrontation with a Me262

The fixed-wing aeroplane is a technologically sound and militarily appropriate method of extending and applying tactical capabilities on the battlefield. The rotary-wing helicopter, however, is a piece of junk. — Author Unknown

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

The purpose of the propeller is to keep a pilot cool. If you think not, stop the propeller and watch him sweat. — Author Unknown

There are no new types of air crashes-only people with short memories. Every accident has its own forerunners, and every one happens either because somebody did not know where to draw the vital dividing line between the unforeseen and the unforeseeable or because well-meaning people deemed the risk acceptable. — Stephen Barlay, The Final Call: Why Airline Disasters Continue to Happen

There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror. — Orson Welles

There are only two types of aircraft -- fighters and targets. — Doyle 'Wahoo' Nicholson, USMC

There is no sport equal to that which aviators enjoy while being carried through the air on great white wings. — Wilbur Wright

There just isn’t the demand for these 30-year-old airplanes that there was even a year ago. Many of them, it appears, are headed for less-glamorous lives in the beverage industry. — Richard Bye, editor of Jet Storage Update, in a Wall Street Journal article about older aircraft being grounded - and scrapped for aluminum - following weaker demand 1n 2002

There will never be a bigger plane built. — A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people

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

These days no one can make money on the goddamn airline business. The economics represent sheer hell. — C. R. Smith, President of American Airlines

The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. — G.K. Chesterton

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. — St. Augustine

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 SR-71 operations in Kadena, Japan

Usually it is because someone does too much too soon, followed very quickly by too little too late. — Steve Wilson, NTSB investigator, when asked about the cause of most aviation accidents

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and you will always long to return. — Leonardo da Vinci

Why fly? Simple. I'm not happy unless there's some room between me and the ground. — Richard Bach

With the possible exception of more pleasing lines to the eye while in flight, the monoplane possesses no material advantage over the biplane. — Glenn Curtiss, 1911

You are professionals trained to deal with three things that can kill you: gravity, combustion, and inertia. Keep them under control, and you'll die in bed. — Sailor Davis, long-time TWA ground school instructor

You cannot get one nickel for commercial flying. — Inglis M. Uppercu, founder of the first American airline to last more than a couple of months, Aeromarine West Indies Airways, 1923

You define a good flight by negatives: you didn't get hijacked, you didn't crash, you didn't throw up, you weren't late, you weren't nauseated by the food. So you're grateful. — Paul Theroux

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

You know they invented wheelbarrows to teach FAA inspectors to walk on their hind legs. — Marty Caidin

Young man, was that a landing or were we shot down?

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A Tribute To Those Who Have Slipped The Surly Bonds

Pilots: You see them at airport terminals around the world. You see them in the morning early, sometimes at night. They come neatly uniformed and hatted, sleeves striped; they show up looking fresh. There's a brisk, young-old look of efficiency about them.

They arrive fresh from home, from hotels, carrying suitcases, battered briefcases, bulging, with a wealth of technical information, data, filled with regulations, rules.

They know the new, harsh sheen of Chicago's O'Hare. They know the cluttered approaches to Newark; they know the tricky shuttle that is Rio; they know, but do not relish, threading the needle into old Hong Kong.

They respect foggy San Francisco. They know the up-and-down walk to the gates at Dallas, the Texas sparseness of Abilene, the Berlin Corridor, New Orleans' sparking terminal, the milling crowds at Washington. They know Butte, Boston, and Beirut.

They appreciate Miami's perfect weather, they recognize the danger of an ice-slick runway at JFK.

They understand about short runways, antiquated fire equipment, inadequate approach lighting, but there is one thing they will never comprehend: complacency.

They remember the workhorse efficiency of the DC-3s, the reliability of the DC-4s and DC-6s, the trouble with the DC-7s.

They discuss the beauty of an old gal named Connie. They recognize the high shrill whine of a Viscount, the rumbling thrust of a DC-8 or 707. And a Convair.

They speak a language unknown to Webster. They discuss ALPA, EPRs, fans, mach and bogie swivels. And, strangely, such things as bugs, thumpers, crickets, and CATs, but they are inclined to change the subject when the uninitiated approaches.

They have tasted the characteristic loneliness of the sky, and occasionally the adrenaline of danger. They respect the unseen thing called turbulence; they know what it means to fight for self-control, to discipline one's senses.

They buy life insurance-but make no concession to the possibility of complete disaster, for they have uncommon faith in themselves and what they are doing.

They concede that the glamour is gone from flying. They deny that a man is through at sixty. They know that tomorrow, or the following night, something will come along that they have never met before; they know that flying requires perseverance. They know that they must practice, lest they retrograde.

They realize why some wit once quipped: "Flying is year after year of monotony punctuated by seconds of stark terror."

As a group, they defy mortality tables, yet approach semiannual physical examinations with trepidation. They are individualistic, yet bonded together. They are family men, yet rated poor marriage bets. They are reputedly overpaid, yet entrusted with equipment worth millions. And entrusted with lives, countless lives.

At times they are reverent: They have watched the Pacific sky turn purple at dusk. They know the twinkling, jeweled beauty of Los Angeles at night; they have seen snow up on the Rockies. They remember the vast unending mat of green Amazon jungle, the twisting silver road that is the father of Waters, an ice cream cone called Fujiyama. And the hump of Africa.

They have watched a satellite streak across a starry sky, seen the clear, deep blue of the stratosphere, felt the incalculable force of the heavens.

They have marveled at sun-streaked evenings, dappled earth, velvet night; spun silver clouds, sculptured cumulus: God's weather. They have viewed the Northern Lights, a wilderness of sky; a pilot's halo, a bomber's moon, horizontal rain, contrails and St. Elmo's Fire.

They have learned to accept these challenge in everyday, they have realized a complete removal from earthy attachments, and they have reveled in a sense of high suspension.

Only a pilot experiences all these. It is their world. — Author Unknown

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High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,
And done a hundred things you have not dreamed of;
Wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless falls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor even eagle flew.
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was born in Shanghai to an American father and an English mother who were missionaries. John was educated at Rugby and in Connecticut. Pilot Officer Magee joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in October 1940, at age 18. He went to Britain to fly Spitfires with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War. He was piloting a Spitfire on a test flight into the stratosphere at 30,000 feet when he got the inspiration for "High Flight." The sonnet was written on the back of a letter to his parents which stated, "I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed." Magee was later killed in action during a dogfight December 11, 1941, at age 19 (Another report states that he was killed during a training flight from the airfield near Scopwick). The parents were living in Washington, DC, at the time of his death.

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Other Aviation Links

When you see a Pilot, they're not getting paid!

Author Unknown

When you see a pilot, he's not getting paid.

When you see a pilot going through the same security you go through, he's not getting paid.

When you see a pilot walking in the terminal, he's not getting paid.

When you see a pilot at the gate pulling up paper work, planning the flight, and conferring with the agent, mechanics and flight attendants, he's not getting paid.

When the flight is delayed or cancelled due to weather or maintenance, the pilots aren't getting paid.

When you see a pilot walking around the aircraft doing a preflight inspection, he's not being paid.

When you board the aircraft and look in the cockpit and see the pilots setting up the aircraft, they're not getting paid.

When you land safely at your destination and walk off the aircraft and see the pilots shutting down the aircraft, they're not being paid.

When you see a pilot waiting for a ride to a hotel for the night, he's not being paid.

The only time the pilot of your aircraft is getting paid is when you don't see him -- when he's locked behind the cockpit door as you push back from the gate. Every thing else he does until this point is for free, for no wages. Nothing!

The average airline pilot is at work for 12 to 14 hours per day, yet gets paid for less than 6 to 7 hours.

The average airline pilot is away from home, at work, for 70+ hours a week, yet gets paid for only 15 to 18 hours per weeks work.

Most pilot's schedules have them working 17 to 18 days or more a month. That means they are not at home more than half the month.

Many pilots don't see their home or families for 2 to 3 weeks at a time or more, yet get paid for only 60 to 70 hours of work per month.

Holidays, weekends, graduations, birthdays, anniversaries, children's weddings, grandma's funeral, summer vacations -- not at home.

A majority of pilots have 4-year college degrees, or more. Then they begin training as pilots.

A large portion of pilots have spent 8 years or more flying in the military, risking their lives and protecting your freedom for wages most of you wouldn't accept in the civilian world.

Civilian-trained pilots have spent $50,000 or more to acquire the training (in addition to their college education) that qualifies them for a regional airline job, which pays a wage less than the poverty level in most western countries.

Most pilots do not attain the required experience level to be hired by a major airline (with a livable wage) until they are past the age of 30. The average age of a new hire airline pilot is 32.

Airline pilots are subject to random drug and alcohol testing, any time they are at work. Fail it and they lose their job.

Airline pilots are required to undergo rigorous re-training and certification every 6 to 9 months, at which time they could fail and lose their jobs, licenses and livelihood.

Airline pilots are required to submit to random government "line checks" during which their license could be revoked and livelihood destroyed.

Airline pilots are exposed to radiation levels far exceeding the normal safe radiation limits mandated by the FDA.

Airline pilots are required to submit to a medical examination every 6 months (captains) and 12 months as first officers. Year after year. Fail that, and their career is over.

How many of you go to work where people try to kill you? How many of you have had your office turned into a cruise missile? How many of you work behind a bullet proof door?

How many of you are responsible for the lives of 200 to 300 people, where any small mistake in your performance results in the death of your customers (and yourselves), and the financial destruction of your company?

How many of your jobs require you to fight your way through thunderstorms, rain, snow, ice and turbulence, day and night, year after year -- no mistakes allowed? Where the excuse, "I had a bad day at work" is never accepted?

Many pilots volunteer (on their own time and own dime) to be trained as Federal Flight Deck Officers, and carry weapons to defend their aircraft, crew and passengers. They maintain their proficiency and qualifications twice a year on their own time and money.

How many of you go to work where you are searched, patted down and your personal items scrutinized by strangers, even though you can kill everyone in your place of work instantly with only your two bare hands?

Airline pilot pay scales and hours worked are usually posted by absurdly overcompensated airline executives who are waging a PR campaign against their pilot unions and trying to justify their own greedy bonuses and draconian wage and pension cuts. Cheap airline passengers just love this since they don't care if their airplane is flown by the lowest denominator, as long as they can fly for next to nothing. Of course, if they don't get to their destination, their next of kin can sue.

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An Airline Pilot's Memories of the Magic of Flight

• Sunrises seen from the high flight levels that make the heart soar.
• The patchwork quilt of the great plains from FL 370 on a day when you can see forever.
• Cruising mere feet above a billiard-table-flat cloud deck at mach .86, with your chin on the glare shield and your face as close as you can get to the windshield.
• Punching out the top of a low overcast while climbing 6,000 feet per minute.
• The majesty and grandeur of towering cumulus.
• Rotating at VR and feeling 800,000 plus pounds of airplane come alive as she lifts off.
• The delicate threads of St. Elmo’s Fire dancing on the windshield at night.
• The twinkle of lights on the Japanese fishing fleet far below, on a night crossing of the North Pacific.
• Cloud formations that are beautiful beyond description.
• Ice fog in Anchorage on a cold winter morning.
• Meteor showers.
• Seeing geologic formations that no ground-pounder will ever see.
• The chaotic, non-stop babble of radio transmissions at O’Hare or Kennedy during the afternoon rush.
• The quietness of center frequency at night during a transcontinental flight.
• The welcome view of approach lights appearing out of the mist just as you reach minimums.
• Lightning storms at night over the Midwest.
• The soft, comforting glow of the instrument panel in a dark cockpit.
• The dancing curtains of colored light of the aurora on a winter-night Atlantic crossing.
• The taxiway names at O’Hare…before they were renamed: The Bridge, Lakeshore Drive, Old Scenic, New Scenic, Outer, The Bypass, Cargo, North-South…
• The majestic panorama of an entire mountain range stretched out beneath you from horizon to horizon.
• Lenticular clouds over the Sierras.
• The brief, yet tempting, glimpse of runway lights…. after you’ve already committed to the missed approach.
• The Alps in winter.
• The lights of London at night from FL350.
• Squall lines that run as far as you can see.
• Exotic lands with exotic food.
• Maneuvering the airplane through day lit canyons between towering cumulus clouds.
• The deep blue-gray of the sky at FL 430.
• The hustle and bustle of Hong Kong Harbor.
• The softness of a touchdown on a snow-covered runway.
• Hearing the nosewheel spin down against the snubber in the well after takeoff. A delightful sound signaling that you were on your way!
• Old Chinatown in Singapore… before it was torn down, modernized, and sterilized.
• Watching the lightning show while crossing the ITCZ at night.
• Long-tail boats speeding along the klongs in Thailand.
• The quietly turning paddle fans in the lobby of the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.
• Dodging colored splotches of red and yellow light on the radar screen at night.
• A military charter bringing a load of GIs safely home from war.
• The sound of foreign accents on the radio.
• Luxury hotels.
• To paraphrase the eloquent aviation writer, Ernie Gann, “The allure of the slit in a China girl's skirt.”
• Sunsets of every color imaginable.
• The tantalizing glow of the flashing strobe lights just before you break out of the clouds on approach.
• Yosemite Valley from above.
• The almost blindingly-brilliant-white of a towering cumulus cloud.
• Ocean crossings.
• The taxiway sentry (with his flag & machine gun) at the old Taipei downtown airport.
• Seventy-thousand-foot-high thunderstorm clouds in the tropics.
• Chinese Junks bobbing in Aberdeen harbor.
• Watching the latitude count down to zero on the INS, and seeing it switch from "N" to "S" as you cross the equator.
• Wake Island at sunrise.
• Oslo Harbor at dusk.
• Icebergs in the North Atlantic.
• Contrails.
• Pago Harbor, framed by puffy cumulus clouds in the late afternoon.
• The camaraderie of a good crew.
• Ferryboat races in Sydney Harbor.
• See the pyramids along the Nile.
• See the sunrise on a tropic isle.
• See the market place in old Algiers or Cairo.
• Send home photographs and souvenirs.
• See the jungle when it’s wet with rain.
• White picket fences in Auckland.
• Trade winds.
• The "Long Bar" at the Raffles Hotel.
• White sandy beaches lined with swaying palms.
• Double-decker buses in London and Hong Kong.
• The endless expanse of white on a polar crossing.
• The Star Ferry in Hong Kong.
• Bangkok after a tropical rain.
• Mono Lake and the steep wall of the Sierra Nevada range when approached from the east.
• The bus ride to Stanley... on the upper deck front seat of the double-decker bus.
• Heavy takeoffs from the reef runway at Honolulu.
• Landings in the B-747 when the only way you knew you had touched down was the movement of the spoiler handle.
• Jimmy’s Kitchen.
• The deafening sound of tropical raindrops slamming angrily against the windshield, accompanied by the hurried slap, slap, slap of the windshield wipers while landing in a torrential downpour in Manila.
• Endless ripples of sand dunes across the trackless miles of the Sahara desert.
• The white cliffs of Dover.
• Oom-pa-pa music at Meyer Gustels in Frankfurt.
• Fjords in Norway.
• The aimless compass, not knowing where to point as you near the top of the world on a polar crossing.
• The old Charlie-Charlie NDB approach into Kai Tak.
• Brain bags crammed with charts to exotic places.
• The Peak tram in Hong Kong.
• Breaking out of the clouds on the IGS approach to runway 13 at Kai Tak, and seeing a windshield full of “checkerboard.”
• An empty weight takeoff in a B-747.
• The bustle of Nathan Road on a summer day.
• Sliding in over Crystal Springs reservoir for a visual approach and landing on 1R in San Francisco.
• The smell of tropical blooms when you step off the plane in Fiji.
• The quietness of a DC-10 cockpit.
• Main gear touching down while the 747 cockpit is still 70 feet in the air.
• The coziness of a B-747 cockpit.
• Good flight engineers.
• The Burma Road.
• CAT IIIb autolands in the DC-10 on a foggy day, when you feel the wheels touch before you ever see the ground.
• The rush of a full-speed-brakes descent at barber pole in a B-727.
• The back-door approach into Kai Tak in a B-747 with your wingtip skimming the rooftops of Yau Yat Chen as you make the steep turn to final.
• The twists and turns of the noise-abatement departure out of Osaka’s old Itami Airport.
• Deadheading in First Class.
• The Canarsie approach into JFK.
• Gerd's restaurant, "Baseler Eck," in Frankfurt.
• The Eiffel Tower.
• Max gross weight takeoffs.
• Cross-wind landings.
• Good co-pilots.
• A large handful of thrust levers, each one connected to 50,000+ pounds of thrust.
• Man-sized rudder pedals… as pie plates.
• “Leak-checking” your eyelids on a long night flight.
• Payday!

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