Aviation Axioms

·       No matter what else happens, fly the airplane. Forget all that stuff about thrust and drag, lift and gravity; an airplane flies because of money.

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

·       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.

·       A check ride ought to be like a skirt, short enough to be interesting but still be long enough to cover everything.

·       Speed is life, altitude is life insurance.  No one has ever collided with the sky!

·       Always remember you fly an airplane with your head, not your hands.

·       Never let an airplane take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier.

·       "Unskilled" pilots are always found in the wreckage with their hand around the microphone.

·       If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger; if you pull the stick back, they get smaller.  (Unless you keep pulling the stick back-then they get bigger again.)

·       Hovering is for pilots who love to fly but have no place to go.

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

·       Flying is the second greatest thrill known to man.  Landing is the first!

·       Everyone already knows the definition of a 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away.  But very few know the definition of a 'great' landing.  It's one after which you can use the airplane another time.

·       The probability of survival is equal to the angle of arrival.

·       IFR: I Follow Roads.

·       You know you've landed with the wheels up when it takes full power to taxi.

·       Those who hoot with the owls by night should not fly with the eagles by day.

·       A helicopter is a collection of rotating parts going round and round and reciprocating parts going up and down - all of them trying to become random in motion.

·       Helicopters can't really fly - they're just so ugly that the earth immediately repels them.

·       Pilots believe in clean living.  They never drink whiskey from a dirty glass.

·       Things which do you no good in aviation:  Altitude above you. Runway behind you.  Fuel in the truck.  Half a second ago. Approach plates in the car.  The airspeed you don't have.

·       If God meant man to fly, He'd have given him more money.

·       Flying is not dangerous; crashing is dangerous.

·       A good simulator check ride is like successful surgery on a corpse.

·       Asking what a pilot thinks about the FAA is like asking a tree what it thinks about dogs.

·       Trust your captain but keep your seat belt securely fastened.

·       An airplane may disappoint a good pilot, but it won't surprise him.

·       Any pilot who relies on a terminal forecast can be sold the Brooklyn Bridge.  If he relies on winds-aloft reports he can be sold Niagara Falls.

·       The friendliest flight attendants are those on the trip home.

·       Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment.

·       Being an airline pilot would be great if you didn't have to go on all those trips.

·       Aviation is not so much a profession as it is a disease.

·       The nicer an airplane looks, the better it flies.

·       There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing.  Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

·       It's a good landing if you can still get the doors open.

·       Passengers prefer old captains and young flight attendants.

·       The only thing worse than a captain who never flew as copilot is a copilot who once was a captain.

·       It's best to keep the pointed end going forward as much as possible.

·       If an earthquake suddenly opened a fissure in a runway that caused an accident, the CAA would find a way to blame it on pilot error.

·       Any attempt to stretch fuel is guaranteed to increase headwind.

·       A thunderstorm is never as bad on the inside as it appears on the outside.  It's worse.

·       It's easy to make a small fortune in aviation.  You start with a large fortune.

·       A male pilot is a confused soul who talks about women when he's flying, and about flying when he's with a woman.

·       A fool and his money are soon flying more airplane than he can handle.

·       The last thing every pilot does before leaving the aircraft after making a gear up landing is to put the gear selection lever in the 'down' position.

·       Try to keep the number of your landings equal to the number of your takeoffs.

·       Takeoffs are optional. Landings are mandatory.

·       You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.

·       The difference between a fighter pilot & a pig?
         A pig doesn't sit at a bar until 0300 waiting to pick up a fighter pilot.