Aviation Quotation of the Week

Sorry for the long time since last I gave you a quote, I have moved my business from a shop to my home and have been busy reorganizing my home to be able to do this. Now I have everything here in the same place, and I even know where it is, so I should be able to get a new quote every week.

11 February 2011: If you are in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly. - Nick Lappos chief R&D pilot, Sikorsky Aircraft

31 December 2010: What's the hurry? Are you afraid I won't come back. - Baron Manfred von Richthofen, last recorded words in reply to a request for an autograph as he was climbing into the cockpit of his plane.

17 December 2010: With a short dash down the runway, the machine lifted into the air and was flying. It was only a flight of twelve seconds, and it was uncertain, wavy, creeping sort of flight at best; but it was a real flight at last and not a glide. – Orville Wright, first flight of a heavier-than-air-aircraft, Dec, 17 1903.

10 December 2010: I'm Douglas Corrigan. Just got in from New York, Where am I?...I intended to fly to California. - Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan, upon arrival in Ireland after his unapproved solo transatlantic flight. He maintained he had "compass troubles"

3 December 2010: How could they possibly be Japanese planes? -Admiral Husband E. Kimmel

26 November 2010: Twenty-five per cent of the passengers of almost any aircraft show white knuckles on take-off. - Colin Marshall, CEO of British Airways

3 November 2010: An airplane flies because of a principle discovered by Bernoulli, not Marconi.

22 October 2010: I have often said that the lure of flight is the lure of beauty. That the reasons flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying. – Amelia Earhart

20 October 2010: I ran out of altitude, airspeed, and ideas all at the same time. - When asked why he ejected. Attributed to Tony Lavier, Chuck Yeager, and just about every other well-known test pilot

9 October 2010: Flying is the perfect vocation for a man who wants to feel like a boy, but not for one who still is.

5 October 2010: The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine. - Orville Wright

24 September 2010: Flight by machine heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. - Simon Newcomb, 1902

Previous Aviation Facts of the Week

9 July 2010: The first aerial combat is thought to be when the pilot of a German observation plane threw a brick at an enemy observation plane. After that it escalated to carrying pistols, shotguns and rifles until machine guns were mounted to aircraft specifically designed as fighters.

5 June 2010: When one thinks of the great carrier nations of WWII, United States and Japan immediately come to mind. Then one remembers that Great Briton also had carriers. But what about Germany and Italy? Both nations are not associated with carriers, but both toyed with carriers. Germany started building a carrier in 1936, and launched it in 1938. Named the 'Graf Zeppelin', in honor of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, she was never finished due to Nazi misunderstanding of the need use of aircraft carriers, and then ultimately due to the personality clashes between Hitler and Admiral Raeder of the Kriegsmarine. So for Germany there were no great carrier aircraft like the A6M,s, F4F, F6F or the F4U, not to mention all of the great dive and torpedo bombers.

22 May 2010: Well things have finally settled down enough to write something new here. I got my latest issue of Aviation History magazine, and in it there is a short piece on the first flight of the YP-59 Airacomet. In the article they said that Col Laurence Craigie was the first pilot of the first American built Jet on 2 October 1942. This statement is both correct and incorrect, though by official USAAF documents, the YP-59 Airacomet first flew on 2 October 1942 with Col Laurence Craigie at the controls. However, before Bell let the USAAF fly it they had their test pilot, Robert Stanley, fly the YP-59 Airacomet taking it up on 1 October 1942, which makes Robert Stanley the first pilot of an American built jet.

8 May 2010: I am sorry that I have not got an aviation fact for you for a couple of weeks now, but we have been busy with the birth of our third child. I hope to have one for you next week.

17 April 2010: The 1934 MacRobertson England-to-Australia air race was a daring race for the aviation industry of the time, and a proving ground for three great aircraft companies. The winner of the race was the de Havilland D.H.88 Comet 'Grosvenor House'. The D.H.88 was purpose built for this race, and laid the groundwork for the venerable D.H.98 Mosquito. In second place was a Douglas Commercial D.C. 2 of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The D.C. 2’s second place showing (only just missing winning due to a refueling complication) proved the airframe which became the famous D.C.3. Roscoe Turner came in third in a Boeing 247, another great commercial aircraft that started the line of successes for the Boeing company.

3 April 2010: As promised last week, the connection between the Sopwith Camel and Antarctic exploration. When Robert Falcon Scott made his ill-fated attempt to reach the South Pole he contracted Boulton Paul Limited to construct shack to be used as his base camp. That is right, the same Boulton Paul Limited that got the contract to build the Sopwith Camel.

26 March 2010: During WWI the Sopwith Aviation Company designed some of the best fighters flow by the British during the war. The greatest of the was the Camel, call such by the humped look of the gun fairing. Sopwith only built a few Camels used for evaluation. The contract for building the bulk of the fighters went to a company long known for its carpentry and ironmongery skills, Boulton & Paul Limited. This wetted the apatite of Boulton & Paul in the aviation industry, and in 1924 Boulton Paul Aircraft was formed. Boulton Paul Aircraft was a pioneer in enclosed gun turrets which got them the contracts from the War Department and Admiralty during WWII to build turreted fighters. The design Boulton Paul Aircraft came up with for the War Department was the Defiant, which, went converted to night fighter, was the first British fighter equipped with radar. Check back next week to learn about the connection between the Sopwith Camel and Antarctic exploration.

14 March 2010: Just less than one month separated two historic flights in 1919, but the differences between the two flights shows the rapid development of aviation in its early days . On May 16th 1919 four Curtiss flying boats take off from Trepassey, Newfoundland heading for England. On May 26th, 10 days later, one of the planes fly into Plymouth harbor England, completing the first trans-Atlantic flight. Eighteen days later, on May 14th, from St. John’s, Newfoundland two pilots, Alcock and Brown, flying in a Vickers Vimy IV British bomber takes off across the Atlantic ocean towards Briton. Alcock and Brown crash in a bog in Ireland 15 hours and 57 minutes later, being the first to fly none stop across that Atlantic. It is amazing how only 18 days separate the end of a 10 day crossing and the first non-stop crossing.

14 February 2010: The first recorded unofficial manned flight is an event mentioned in a 12th-century Chinese poem, where a man was attached to a kite and sent up to observe enemy movements. All the events of the poem are corroborated except the kite flight, so the event is considered to be less legendary than Daedalus, but as there is doubt, the Montgolfier flight is the first official flight.

24 January 2010: The X-1 hanging in the Smithsonian is missing a fuel tank. Only one other X-1 was built, and when it needed a fuel tank, the Smithsonian granted permission to come and take the fuel tank out of its display.