My favorite helicopter quotes...

Sparker · October 29, 2007

Most of these quotes came from a book by Padfield "Learning to Fly Helicopters" and I must say it has been the easiest most interesting read for me so far.

I shared some of these with my dad of one of my good friends. They both said the quote from Harry Reasoner really made them think of me. I don't know if that is good or bad...

“If an aircraft accident occurs anytime, anywhere in the world, there is an 80 percent chance that, in the final analysis, it will be due to human factors.”
-Dr. Robert B. Lee

“A superior pilot is one who stays out of trouble by using his superior judgment to avoid situations which might require the use of his superior skill.”

“If God had wanted man to fly, He would have given him olive drab fire-resistant skin and pockets with zippers.”
-Unknown US Army Helicopter Pilot

“Like all novices we began with the helicopter but soon saw it had no future and dropped it. The helicopter does, with great labor, only what the balloon does without labor, and is no more fitted than the balloon for rapid horizontal flight. If its engine stops, it must fall with deathly violence, for it can neither float like a balloon nor glide like an airplane. The helicopter is much easier to design than an airplane, but it is worthless when done.”
-Wilbur Wright

“On June 21, 1972, in an Aerospatiale SA-315B Lama that was lightened as much as possible, I reached an altitude of 40,814 feet establishing a helicopter altitude which remains today. That flight also wound up being the longest autorotation in history because the turbine died as soon as I reduced power. With a -63°C temperature that day, the engine flamed out and could not be restarted.”
-Jean Boulet, Aerospatiale test pilot.

“The thing is, helicopters are different from airplanes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if it is not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance, the helicopter stops flying, immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.
This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot, and why, in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear-eyed buoyant extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooders, introspective anticipators of trouble. They know if something bad has not happened it is about to.”
-Harry Reasoner