The Thinking Pilot's Flight Manual Quotes

“When making a decision regarding weather, an effective tool is to ask oneself if this might lead to looking stupid in the NTSB report.”
― Rick Durden, The Thinking Pilot's Flight Manual: Or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It

“Standing on snow or ice in front of an airplane that has no brakes can make you a Darwin Award candidate.”
― Rick Durden, The Thinking Pilot's Flight Manual: Or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It

“Notice who is telling you not to get the rating, that it’s not worth it. It’s the hangers-on with the ancient private ratings, who nearly roll airplanes into balls of aluminum when landing in mild crosswinds. It’s easier for them to accept their own lack of ambition or desire to be better pilots by holding others back. Do they represent the level at which you want to remain?”
― Rick Durden, The Thinking Pilot's Flight Manual: Or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It

“After all, humans have only been flying since 1783, and that isn’t time for tens of thousands of years of evolution to have caught up ... we have to think about each flight we make because it isn’t yet a natural part of us.”
― Rick Durden, The Thinking Pilot's Flight Manual: Or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It

“After all, each person who walks in the door expressing the desire to fly is much braver than the average member of our society because he or she has spent a lifetime being inundated by our media happily extolling the dangers of little airplanes.”
― Rick Durden, The Thinking Pilot's Flight Manual: Or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It