Aviation Anecdotes

  Aeroplanes Do you roar to remind Of what we know is there- The threat now loud behind Our singing summer air? Do you fly low to warn Of what will darken soon Above our homes forlorn The Sun, the stars, the moon?- Of what man-thought has made- The wheels of loveless might That never now are stayed, keep turning, day and night    - Elizabeth Daryush; The Last Man   Sonnet to a Windsock Brave canvas on a thousand breezes borne, Now on some scrapheap destined to be thrown, By bullets riddled, and bomb splinters torn, These fateful months you faithfully have flown. For bloodshot eyes within the circuit flying, The wind’s own eye precisely you have found;- Young men- and some are hurt and some are dying,- At ninety knots they glide from air to ground. Towards you my vizored friends, with one last glance, Unleashed their Merlins-took off into cloud, James fell in flames and Christopher in France, For Peter and for Simo...

  “You love a lot of things if you live around them. But then there’s isn’t any woman and there isn’t any horse, not any before nor any after, that is as lovely as a great airplane. And men who love them are faithful to them even though they may leave them for others. Man has one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely airplane he loses it to, there is where his heart will forever be”- Ernest Hemingway There are two kinds of airplanes, those you fly and those that fly you. You must have a distinct understanding at the very start as to who is the boss- Ernest Gann   Aircraft- like women they respond to love and respect, but they can bite hard if you hold them even momentarily in contempt.   Almost since the beginning of manned flight, pilots have been known to regard certain of their aircraft with undeserved attention; often the more dangerous and difficult they were to fly, the more unreasonable became the pilot’s perverse devotion.   Is fate too strong ...