GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
Ernest K. Gann

There are 19 quotes matching Ernest K. Gann in the collection:

The air is annoyingly potted with a multitude of minor vertical disturbances which sicken the passengers and keep us captives of our seat belts. We sweat in the cockpit, though much of the time we fly with the side windows open. The airplanes smell of hot oil and simmering aluminum, disinfectant, feces, leather, and puke … the stewardesses, short-tempered and reeking of vomit, come forward as often as they can for what is a breath of comparatively fresh air.

Ernest K. Gann

Describing airline flying in the 1930’s, Fate is the Hunter, 1961.

Electronics were rascals, and they lay awake nights trying to find some way to screw you during the day. You could not reason with them. They had a brain and intestines, but no heart.

Ernest K. Gann

The Black Watch, 1989.

The only time there was too much fuel aboard any aircraft was if it was on fire.

Ernest K. Gann

Ernest K. Gann's Flying Circus, 1974. Often attributed to pioneer Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith in the present tense, but I’ve seen no original sourcing. Guessing it’s older than 1974, but this is the earlist in print that Google finds.

If an airplane is still in one piece, don’t cheat on it. Ride the bastard down.

Ernest K. Gann

Advice from the ‘old pelican’, The Black Watch,' 1989.

Before take-off, a professional pilot is keen, anxious, but lest someone read his true feelings he is elaborately casual. The reason for this is that he is about to enter a new though familiar world. The process of entrance begins a short time before he leaves the ground and is completed the instant he is in the air. From that moment on, not only his body but his spirit and personality exist in a separate world known only to himself and his comrades.

As the years go by, he returns to this invisible world rather than to earth for peace and solace. There also he finds a profound enchantment, although he can seldom describe it. He can discuss it with others of his kind, and because they too know and feel its power they understand. But his attempts to communicate his feelings to his wife or other earthly confidants invariable end in failure.

Flying is hypnotic and all pilots are willing victims to the spell. Their world is like a magic island in which the factors of life and death assume their proper values. Thinking becomes clear because there are no earthly foibles or embellishments to confuse it. Professional pilots are, of necessity, uncomplicated, simple men. Their thinking must remain straightforward, or they die — violently.

The men in this book are fictitious characters but their counterparts can be found in cockpits all over the world. Now they are flying a war. Tomorrow they will be flying a peace, for, regardless of the world’s condition, flying is their life.

Ernest K. Gann

Forward to Island in the Sky, 1944.

You can always tell when a man has lost his soul to flying. The poor bastard is hopelessly committed to stopping whatever he is doing long enough to look up and make sure the aircraft purring overhead continues on course and does not suddenly fall out of the sky. It is also his bound duty to watch every aircraft within view take off and land.

Ernest K. Gann

Fate is the Hunter, 1961.

During this period Steen and Fox were killed trying a single-engine instrument approach at Moline. Then Campbell and Leatherman hit a ridge near Elko, Nevada. In both incidents the official verdict was ‘pilot error’, but since their passengers, who were innocent of the controls, also failed to survive, it seemed that fate was the hunter. As it had been and would be.

Ernest K

Gann
Fate is the Hunter, 1961.

I am drawn to the new chart with all of its colorful intricacies as a gourmet must anticipate the details of a feast … I shall keep them forever. As stunning exciting proof that a proper mixture of science and art is not only possible but a blessed union.

Ernest K

Gann, Fate is the Hunter, 1961.

Anyone can do the job when things are going right. In this business we play for keeps.

Ernest K. Gann

Fate is the Hunter, 1961.

Rule books are paper — they will not cushion a sudden meeting of stone and metal.

Ernest K. Gann

Fate is the Hunter, 1961.

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 K. Gann

Fate is the Hunter, 1961.

And he supposed it might not be the best of days. But then, he was flying the mails and was not expected to squat on the ground like a frightened canary every time there was a cloud in the sky. If a pilot showed an obvious preference for flying only in the best conditions he soon found himself looking for work. This was the way of his life and he had always ascended when others had found excuse to keep their feet on the ground.

Ernest K. Gann

Fate is the Hunter, 1961.

Are we lost, or are we found at last?
On earth we strive for our various needs, because so goes the fundamental law of man. Aloft, at least for a little while, the needs disappear. Likewise the striving.
In the thoughts of man aloft, food and evil become mixed and sometimes reversed. This is the open door to wisdom.
Aloft, the earth is ancient and man is young, regardless of his numbers, for there, aloft he may reaffirm his suspicions that he may not be so very much. This is the gateway to humility.
And yet, aloft there are moments when man can ask himself, “what am I, this creature so important to me? Who is it rules me from birth to tomb? Am I but a slave destined to crawl for labor to hearth and back again? Am I but one of the living dead, or my own god set free?” This is the invitation to full life… .
“Where are we?"
“If you really must know, I’ll tell you.”
“Never mind. Here aloft, we are not lost, but found.”

Ernest K. Gann

’s Flying Circus, 1974.

There are airmen and there are pilots: the first being part bird whose view from aloft is normal and comfortable, a creature whose brain and muscles frequently originate movements which suggest flight; and then there are pilots who regardless of their airborne time remain earth-loving bipeds forever. When these latter unfortunates, because of one urge or another, actually make an ascension, they neither anticipate nor relish the event and they drive their machines with the same graceless labor they inflict upon the family vehicle.

Ernest K. Gann

Old Number One, Ernest K. Gann’s Flying Circus, 1974.

It doesn’t look nearly as big as it did the first time I saw one. Mickey McGuire and I used to sit hour after hour in the cockpit of the one that American used for training, at the company school in Chicago, saying to each other, ‘My God, do you think we’ll ever learn to fly anything this big?’

Ernest K. Gann

Quoted in Flying magazine, September 1977.

Nobody who gets too damned relaxed builds up much flying time.

Ernest K. Gann

Advice from the 'old pelican', The Black Watch, 1989.

It’s when things are going just right that you’d better be suspicious. There you are, fat as can be. The whole world is yours and you’re the answer to the Wright brothers’ prayers. You say to yourself, nothing can go wrong … all my trespasses are forgiven. Best you not believe it.

Ernest K. Gann

Advice from the 'old pelican,' The Black Watch, 1989.

The emergencies you train for almost never happen. It’s the one you can't train for that kills you.

Ernest K. Gann

Advice from the 'old pelican', The Black Watch, 1989.

Sound judgment is the ability of a pilot to maintain his options. This is because a given situation becomes more critical as the number of options declines. Accidents most often occur when options dwindle, and a pilot is left without choices.

Ernest K. Gann

Talking with aviation writer Barry Schiff, quoted in AOPA Pilot magazine August 2024, and source verified via personal correspondence with Barry Schiff 24 July 2024.

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