GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
John Moore-Brabazon


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There are 4 quotes matching John Moore-Brabazon in the collection:


I am the first pig to fly.

Sign on the wicker basket carrying the first recorded pig to fly

The six-week-old piglet from the yard of the Rose and Crown pub was dubbed Icarus, and the pilot was John Moore-Brabazon (later First Lord Brabazon of Tara) in a Viosin biplane from Shellbeach, the Short Brothers airfield at Leysdown on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, UK. 4 November 1909.

first flying pig

You know, and I know, the cause of this accident. It is due to the adventurous, pioneering spirit of our race. It has been like in the past, it is like that in the present, and I hope it will be in the future. Here is a great imaginative project, to build a machine with twice the speed and twice the height of any existing machine in the world. We all went into it with our eyes wide open. We were conscious of the dangers that were lurking in the unknown. We did not know what fate was going to hold out for us in the future.

Lord Brabazon of Tara

Robust defense while speaking to the court of inquiry for the Comet accidents, 1954.

Although no definite reason for the accident has been established, modifications are being embodied to cover every possibility that imagination has suggested as a likely cause of the disaster. When these modifications are completed and have been satisfactorily flight tested, the Board sees no reason why passenger services should not be resumed.

Lord Brabazon of Tara

Letter to the Minister of Transport recommending that Comet aircraft be allowed to fly passengers again. Service resumed, but the next month Comet G-ALYY crashed into waters near Naples and the fleet was grounded once again. 4 April 1954.

I plead for a policy of hurrying slowly. We have a great Minister of Aviation, a young man capable and imaginative but if he pursues this policy, he will, as I believe, ruin civil aviation from the point of view of paying, for ever. He said the other day, in a great speech before the Society of Aircraft Constructors:

“Space beckons us with a golden finger”.

My Lords, it beckons us to the three brass balls of the pawnbroker.

Lord Brabazon of Tara

UK House of Lords debate Supersonic Civil Aircraft, 13 November 1962. The Minister of Aviation was Julian Amery, the outcome was Concorde. The next speaker was Lord Shackleton:

“My Lords, we expected an entertaining speech from the noble Lord, Lord Brabazon of Tara, and we certainly got it.” .


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