Provided by occasional reader Guy:
“A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what’s left of your unit.”
- Army’s magazine of preventive maintenance.
“Aim towards the Enemy.”
- Instruction printed on US Rocket Launcher
“When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is not our friend.
- U.S. Marine Corps
“Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate. The bombs are guaranteed to always hit the ground.”
- USAF Ammo Troop
“If the enemy is in range, so are you.”
- Infantry Journal
“It is generally inadvisable to eject directly over the area you just bombed.”
- U.S. Air Force Manual
“Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons.”
- General Macarthur
“Try to look unimportant; they may be low on ammo.”
- Infantry Journal
“You, you, and you . Panic. The rest of you, come with me.”
- U.S. Marine Corp Gunnery Sgt.
“Tracers work both ways.”
- U.S. Army Ordnance
“Five second fuses only last three seconds.”
- Infantry Journal
“Don’t ever be the first, don’t ever be the last, and don’t ever volunteer to do anything.”
- U.S. Navy Swabbie
“Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid.”
- David Hackworth
“If your attack is going too well, you‚Äôre walking into an ambush.”
- Infantry Journal
“No combat-ready unit has ever passed inspection.”
- Joe Gay
“Any ship can be a minesweeper … once.”
- Anonymous
“Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.”
- Unknown Marine Recruit
“Don’t draw fire; it irritates the people around you.”
- Your Buddie s
“If you see a bomb technician running, follow him.”
- USAF Ammo Troop
“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:
“Why is it doing that?”,
“Where are we?”
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.”
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.”
“You know that your landing gear is up and locked when it takes ! full power to taxi to the terminal.”
As the test pilot climbs out of the experimental aircraft, having torn off the wings and tail in the crash landing, the crash truck arrives, the rescuer sees a bloodied pilot and asks “What happened?”.
The pilot’s reply: “I don’t know, I just got here myself!”
- Attributed to Ray Crandell (Lockheed test pilot)
Just to add…
‘Good judgement comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgement’. – from an Australian Aviation Magazine.
The wisdom of the ages contained in the above.
Whenever I hear folks say they don’t skydive because they don’t believe in jumping out of a “perfectly good airplane” I KNOW they’ve never spent any time hanging around maintenance control.
Also some multi-motor restricted aviator type back in day told me his rule was never to fly with an NFO that didn’t wear glasses. Because you don’t know what’s wrong with him.
One of my favourites, equally applicable to warfare and aviation;
‘Anything you do can get you killed, and that includes nothing.’
My dearest friend’s nephew just joined the Marines. Caught site of his training schedule for the next 2 months – OUCH! So I sent him this link; I’m sure he’ll get a good laugh.
Oh – and I did too! Thanx for starting my day with a good chuckle Lex.
If you go to strategypage.com and look in the humor section, there’s a list of things entitled “staff officers say the funniest things.” It’s a riot.
My brother in law was a Navy pilot. His take on maintenance:
USAF pilot, upon observing minor hydraulic leak from his nose gear during preflight inspection:
SGT, take this plane back to the shop. It has a hydraulic leak in its nose gear. (returns to the bar)
Navy pilot, upon observing clean and immaculate nose gear during preflight inspection:
Chief, take this one back to the shop. There’s no oil in the hydraulics.
They are all great quotes CAPT Lex. I love ‘em.
Hope some of these will also find you laughing. I got them from a paratrooper. I particularly like the one from British airways at the Frankfurt airport.
Tower Talk
Delta 351: “Give us another hint! We have digital watches!”
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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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From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff queue: “I’m
f…ing bored!”
Ground Traffic Control: “Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!”
Unknown aircraft: “I said I was f…ing bored, not f…ing stupid!”
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O’Hare Approach Control to a 747: “United 329 heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o’clock, three miles, Eastbound.”
United 239: “Approach, I’ve always wanted to say this…I’ve got the little Fokker in sight.”
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A DC-10 had come in a little fast and thus had an exceedingly long roll out after touching down.
San Jose Tower Noted: “American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the Guadalupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport.”
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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 an eight-engined B-52 that had one engine shut down.
“Ah,” the fighter pilot remarked, “the dreaded seven-engine approach.”
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A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:
Lufthansa (in German): “Ground, what is our start clearance time?”
Ground (in English): “If you want an answer you must speak in English.”
Lufthansa (in English): “I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany. Why must I speak English?”
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent) “Because you lost the bloody war.”
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Tower: “Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7″
Eastern 702: “Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway.”
Tower: “Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702, contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?”
Continental 635: “Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger…and yes, we copied Eastern. We’ve already notified our caterers.”
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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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The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a
short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one’s gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign Speedbird 206.
Speedbird 206: “Frankfurt, Speedbird 206 clear of active runway.”
Ground: “Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven.”
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: “Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?”
Speedbird 206: “Stand by, Ground, I’m looking up our gate location now.”
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): “Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?”
Speedbird 206 (coolly): “Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, and I didn’t land.”
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While taxiing at London’s Gatwick Airport, the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727.
An irate female ATC ground controller lashed out at the US Air
crew, screaming:
“US Air 2771, where the hell are you going?! I told you to
turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it’s difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!”
Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting
hysterically:
“God! Now you’ve screwed everything up! It’ll take forever to
sort this out! You stay right there and don’t move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the humbled crew responded.
Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high.
Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone, asking:
“Wasn’t I married to you once?”
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Subsunk out.
Subsunk, that last one had me guffawing out loud. Which normally would be OK, except that I’m at work in a very uptight, stodgy insurance company. Expressions of emotion are frowned upon. Says so in our manual….
God, wish I had a set of these for the corporate world….
My mom tried to get her small craft pilot’s license MANY years ago. She did great at the actual flying, but sadly flunked ground school. She just shared the following story:
We were in the control tower at Worcester Airport during ground school, for a demo on how the tower operates. There was a 4-place Cessna circling round and round the tower while the controller was enjoying hearing himself lecturing the students. Finally, my mom excused herself, and said…”I think that poor pilot is trying to get your attention.” Of course, the controller had turned off the radio controls, because he didn’t want to be interrupted…when the radio was turned up…they heard, “PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Let me land…I am about ready to run out of fuel!” Whereupon the flight instructor very quietly told the students that this was not the way to run a tower! We all just laughed, much to the embarrassment of the controller.
I always thought the 11th Commandent of Damage Control was:
“When the cold, dark water swirls around your ankles while you stand on the bridge, it is time to abandon ship.”
Jim;
That saying about judement is attributed to Will Rogers. I carry a copy in my wallet, and it has been useful in counselling younger people, or sometimes peers…
When I was Aboard Halsey, Our ship was SOPA at Peir 4 San Diego when USS Tripoli returned from the gulf. We hosted the welcoming home event.We had a banner made up with “Welcome home USS Tripoli, Navy’s proof that all ships can be a minesweeper, once”.
I Don’t know if it was someone from our ship that coined it or not but that was the first time I had heard that particular phrase.