One of my favorite quotes by Chuck Yeager is “It’s the man, not the machine” which is in reference to dogfighting in an aircraft. This of course is meant to say that someone with a superior fighter plane could still be taken down by someone with an inferior one; that it is the operator in the seat you’d put your money on.
With all the articles and tweets and such online today posted in tribute to the great legend Chuck Yeager, I came across a collection of his quotes shared by Dave English:
“I was always afraid of dying. Always. It was my fear that made me learn everything I could about my airplane and my emergency equipment, and kept me flying respectful of my machine and always alert in the cockpit.”
“There’s no such thing as a natural-born pilot. Whatever my aptitude or talents, becoming a professional pilot was hard work, really a lifetime’s experience.”
“You can’t watch yourself fly. But you know when you’re in sync with the machine, so plugged into its instruments and controls that your mind and your hand become the heart of its operating system. You can make that airplane talk, and like a good horse, the machine knows when it’s in competent hands. You know what you can get away with. And you can only be wrong once.”
“Arrogance got more pilots in trouble than faulty equipment.”
“You’ve got to understand systems. Even in today’s airplanes, you have to understand systems. The better you understand them, the better off you are in case an emergency arises.”
“In the end, experience is what counts. The more experience you have, the better you are. And that’s true of anything you do in airplanes, dogfighting in combat, or anything like that.”
“The best pilots fly more than the others; that’s why they’re the best.”
“If you are going to fly, do it right. What I really admire in a flyer is professionalism and consistency. I’m really impressed by a guy or gal who goes out there day after day and does it right — not fancy or flamboyant, but just constantly good performance. Lots of pilots talk a good game, and sometimes their stories get better with each telling. Don’t measure yourself by the stories of others. Seek to improve yourself — that’s the mark of a true pro.”
“All I know is I worked my tail off to learn how to fly and worked hard at it all the way. And in the end, the one big reason why I was better than average as a pilot was because I flew more than anybody else. If there is such a thing as ‘the right stuff’ in piloting, then it is experience.”
“I have flown in just about everything, with all kinds of pilots in all parts of the world — British, French, Pakistani, Iranian, Japanese, Chinese — and there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between any of them except for one unchanging, certain fact: the best, most skillful pilot has the most experience.”
“Do something that you like. Forget about the pay for Christ’s sakes…. Everybody that I’ve ever seen that enjoyed their job was very good at it. That included flying airplanes too.”
“I never let myself be afraid. I would just focus on the dials and concentrate on flying.”
“Being afraid is just a waste of time. You live your life and you die when it’s time.”
“I found you don’t want to react too quick to an emergency, because a lot of times you’d do the wrong thing.”
“The more knowledge you have about your airplane — your systems — the better your chances are of surviving when things start falling apart around you.”
“It’s almost impossible to describe the feeling: it’s as if you were one with that Mustang, an extension of the throttle…. You were so wired into that airplane that you flew it to the limit of its specs, where firing your guns could cause a stall…. Maximum power, lift, and maneuverability were achieved mostly by instinctive flying…. Concentration was total.”
“If you want to grow old as a pilot, you — ve got to know when to push it, and when to back off.”
“You do not waste time being scared. You concentrate on what is important.”
“I concentrated on what I had to do. If you panic, you die.”
“Never wait for trouble. You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.”
“Rules are made for people who aren’t willing to make up their own.”
“The reason probably I spent 55 years and one month in Air Force cockpits and still survived is because I made it a point to learn everything I could about the airplane and the systems. Because that’s what keeps you alive when you have an emergency.”