Aviators From The United States

"One day, I got a call to come into General Arnold's office. He said, "What do you know about the B-26?" I said, "I don’t know a thing except the scuttlebutt that it’s a so-called hot airplane." The men were saying that they were willing to be killed in war, but they wouldn't fly the B-26. ... I flew the plane and didn't see any thing so difficult about it. I came back and said to General Arnold, "I can cure your men of walking off the program. Let's put on the girls.""

"Earthbound souls know only the underside of the atmosphere in which they live. But go up higher — above the dust and water vapor — and the sky turns dark until one can see the stars at noon."

"It is though a bow-and-arrow army, having been routed by gunpowder, sought to win back lost ground by throwing in yet more bows and arrows."

"Here ... are the most significant lessons of modern air power: 1. No land or sea operations are possible without first assuming control of the air above. ... 2. Navies have lost their function of strategic offensive. ... The days when battle fleets steamed boldly within striking distance of enemy shores and proceeded to pound them into submission are now relegated to history. Today these fleets can approach only under the shield of a powerful umbrella of land-based air power. ... 3. The blockade of an enemy nation has become a function of air power. ... 4. Only air power can defeat air power. ... 5. Land-based aviation is always superior to ship-borne aviation. ... 6. The striking radius of air power must be equal to the maximum dimensions of the theater of operations. ... 7. In aerial warfare the factor of quality is relatively more decisive than the factor of quantity. ... 8. Aircraft types must be specialized to fit not only the general strategy but the tactical problems of a specific campaign. ... 9. Destruction of enemy morale from the air can be accomplished only by precision bombing. ... As a matter of plain fact, we have neither air power nor airmen, but only flying soldiers and flying sailors who do not even speak the same military language. ... 10. The principle of unity of command, long recognized on land and on sea, applies with no less force to the air. ... 11. Air power must have its own transport."

"I truly want us to live in a world 50 or 100 years from now where people are jumping in their rockets like the Jetsons and there are families bouncing around on the moon with their kid in a spacesuit. … I also think if we are going to live in that world, we better conquer childhood cancer along the way."

"Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, Earth sure looks like a perfect world."

"Our American doughboys were pushing in on both sides of the salient. We could see them moving forward. Their bayonets were fixed, and they were using them. They stormed the trenches, fighting with cold steel and rifle butts. From my comparatively safe place in the sky, I watched them with admiration. I have always maintained that American infantrymen were the heroes of the war and that Alvin T. York, winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor, was the greatest hero of them all."

"To my mother, Elizabeth Basler Rickenbacker, with love and appreciation; her inspiration throughout life never failed me. To my wife, Adelaide Frost Rickenbacker, whose constant confidence, love and dedication have always supported me through failure and success."

"It seems only yesterday, in 1934, that Eastern Air Lines was a struggling little company pioneering in a new and untried field. It became a giant in the industry. We built it through hard work, dedication and faith in the future of America. This kind of faith in the future of America is being expressed everywhere you look. It is based upon the one eternal trith on which our nation is founded. The future promises that men and women, free to dream and free to work to make their dreams come true, can accomplish anything. There can be no limit to the creative imagination with which a beneficient God has endowed mankind."

"The Prime Minister's car picked me up at the Savoy Hotel, It appeared to be European-royalty day at the Chequers, with all the deposed kings and queens of the Continent present. After a pleasant luncheon, Churchill and I moved outside and sat under a large oak tree. He asked me about Russia, but, when I started to give him my observations, he interrupted me in a bantering tone, questioning my statements as though I had been sold a bill of goods. "Mr. Prime Minister," I said, "you invited me here, and I was pleased to come. If you don't care to listen to what I have to report, then I would really prefer to leave, for I am behind schedule and have plenty to do. And if you aren't busy, you oughyt to be, as I would imagine you'd have plenty to do too." "Oh, I'm sorry, so sorry," he said. "Please do continue." I did, and this time he listened attentively. I concluded by imploring him to work for a better understanding between him and Roosevelt on the one hand and Stalin on the other. I recommended that Britain and the United States be realistic with Stalin and establish a firm and just agreement before the war was ended, with positive understanding and respect on all sides. "If this isn't done," I said, "Russia will demand ten times more after the war than she will ask for today. By sincerely holding out the olive branch of peace today, you will get credit on the books of history for eliminating the possibility of another great war within the next 25 years." Discussing other areas of the war, Churchill said that, when victory in Europe was secure, he would send his armies to the Pacific to give the Americans abundant help against the Japanese. "Mr. Churchill," I said, "when the Germans capitulate, the English people will be through with war. You will probably no longer be prime minister." It is sad, but that is exactly what did happen."

"As the dinner progressed, it became clear that, of all those present, only Vansittart believed that the Germans would dare to precipitate another war. All the others disagreed so bluntly and positively that, after only a few minutes of conversation, I realized that it was pointless to continue the discussion. "Rickenbacker," I told myself, "just be a country boy. Keep your mouth shut and your ears open, and you might learn something." What I learned was that the British leaders of that period were more interested in petty bickering and attempting to keep themselves in power than they were in even learning about German aims, much less preparing to defend against them. At that time in Britain, pre-preparedness was considered warmongering. Winston Churchill, one of the few eminent Britons who believed in preparedness and who made his militant voice heard at every opportunity, was very much in disfavor at the time. So was Anthony Eden. It was a government of compromise and self-delusion. In their internal political fights the English leaders had forgotten the outside world."

"When we arrived home, we found the situation in the United States no better. In vain did I attempt to describe to our military leaders the true situation in Germany. My reports were completely at variance with those coming in from our social-climbing lounge lizards, who were too busy going to cocktail parties to do their jobs."

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared."

""It’s hard for the astronauts to meet everybody because we have responsibilities in the office and families we need to see, so we try to spread out"."

""I believe failure can be caused by lack of focus on that mission, or allowing too many distractions into your life"."

""I also should credit all the women pilots before me, including the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII and the Mercury 13 women who passed the difficult astronaut exams in the early 1960s"."

"I asked my crew to be creative, to think about everything that could go wrong during the mission that no one has thought about yet and bring it to the attention of the flight control team"

""Sometimes a woman needs to show her competence before the guys “accept” her and trust her"."

""A leader must be collaborative and competent, and your team won’t care if you are a man or a woman"."

"" Set a “mission” for yourself and write it somewhere where you will see it daily"."

"Informal learning is more difficult because you don’t always know what you need to know"

"Travel is always surprising. You can never read enough about a destination in a book to understand or to see what it's like until you get there. So, I tend to reserve my judgment about places because every time I've gone to different places I've been surprised. And I love that."

"India looks like a jewel from Space."

"My other biggest challenge at the academy revolved around the honor system. Honor, to me, is a simple do or don't. USAFA had gone through some recent cheating scandals, which threw a sharp focus on the system of dealing with honor violations and demoralized the wing. At the academy our honor system seemed bogged down by specifics and nuances of meaning. It was treated like a court of law, which shocked me. At the Point, honor was simple; it wasn't thought over, it wasn't discussed, it wasn't codified, analyzed, beaten to the ground, or weakened by myriad interpretations. We just lived with it, accepted it; we didn't lie, didn't cheat, and didn't steal. Not lying meant you didn't make falsehoods, known falsehoods, deliberate falsehoods, or little white falsehoods. You didn't cheat on exams or in the classroom. You didn't steal. That just meant you didn't steal. Period."

"SAC had been established by belligerent old General Curt LeMay and General Tommy Power, both pronuclear nutcases. Under their rules, if a wing commander messed up even a little bit he was canned and gone forever, so SAC fostered attitudes about how tough they were. What they really did was made a bunch of liars out of many wing commanders, DMs, and DOs. Guys at wing level were scared people. They would lie, cheat, steal, and deny- anything to make themselves look good."

"When LeMay scared the hell out of his people, he made something out of them that I don't think was their true nature. He made them cringe and hide the truth. He made them say, "Yes, sir, yes, sir," becoming chronic liars protecting their own skins. Whom were these guys going to promote? Whom were they going to favor in their OER (Officer Effectiveness Report) system? It wouldn't be somebody better, or even someone similar to them. A man like that has to have somebody working for him that he can dominate, and he is inevitably going to pick a lesser individual. After about twenty years of this system the incest destroys the force. I had a bunch of really great friends in SAC, but a big group of guys were developed into people who were afraid to think for themselves. They damn near destroyed the air force in the process."

"America owes its present prestige and standing in the air world in large measure to the money, time and effort expended in aeronautical experimentation and research. Our future supremacy in the air depends on the brains and efforts of our engineers."

"To win a war, one must try and kill as many men and destroy as much property as you can. If you can get mechanical machines to do this, then you are saving lives at the outset."

"A modern, autonomous, and thoroughly trained Air Force in being at all times will not alone be sufficient, but without it there can be no national security."

"The idea which I carried out in the boys [sic] books was to give facts, interspersed by thrills and sensations, which would give the reader a comprehensive idea of the development of aviation. The thrills and sensations filled the boy's desire in that direction while he absorbed the facts."

"The technical genius which could find answers was not cooped up in military or civilian bureaucracy, but was to be found in universities and in the people at large."

"Offense is the essence of air power."

"We tried to learn how to secure quantity production of airplanes the hard way. We never accepted the fundamental principle that an air-plane building program must be supervised by men who know how to design and construct airplanes.... Certainly, World War I definitely proved that trained aviation personnel can be turned out much faster than we can turn out airplanes. The truth is, the foundation for any workable production plan for aircraft must be built up in time of peace."

"Our Air Force belongs to those who come from ranks of labor, management, the farms, the stores, the professions and colleges and legislative halls...Air Power will always be the business of every American citizen"

"As a nation we were not prepared for World War II. Yes, we won the war, but at a terrific cost in lives, human suffering, and material, and at times the margin was narrow. History alone can reveal how many turning points there were, how many times we were near losing, and how our enemies’ mistakes pulled us through. In the flush of victory, some like to forget these unpalatable truths."

"I saw this propellerless plane taxiing around the air field and making short flights. I knew then and there I must get the plans and specifications of that jet plane back to the United States."

"Strategic air attack is wasted if it is dissipated piecemeal in sporadic attacks between which enemy has an opportunity to readjust defenses or recuperate."

"Mass travel by air made possible by the Jet Age may prove to be more significant to world destiny than the atom bomb. For there can be no atom bomb more powerful than the air tourist, charged with curiosity, enthusiasm and good will, who can roam the four corners of the world, meeting in friendship and understanding the people of other nations and races."

"If you want to win a baseball game, you try to outhit the other fellow but you don't take away his bat. ... I urge that when the fighting stops, British Overseas Airways be permitted to secure—on equitable terms—all the ocean transport planes that are needed to restore the balance for fair competition."

"History has clearly shown that among all the nations in the world, those which have developed to the fullest, their facilities for communication and transport have been the nations which have led the advance of civilization, and which have raised above all others, the standard of living of their people."

"As we carry men, mail and merchandise - ideas and ideals - science, medicine, culture and the arts - we will again be carrying cargoes of good-will. I hope we will never carry cargoes of imperialism and hate. We must see that they are not sent. We must remember that air transport is the vehicle, not the cargo. It can serve good ends or bad."

"In these 20 years transport aviation has become a tremendous force in the international life of our nation. So rapidly that we have yet to realize it fully, it has reduced the world to one-fifth its former travel size. Its mission has everywhere been one of peace, friendship, of aid in developing mutual benefit of trade and commerce. It has within a single decade swept away forever the age-old barriers of time and distance between this nation and its neighboring republics and the lands beyond the seas. It has already proved itself a vital force for the protection and extension of this nation's world commerce. Equally important it has proved itself the means by which those friendly nations are being woven into a great community of good neighbors."

"We must preach the gospel, 'Go abroad set up new businesses, bring in the other fellow as a local partner, be it a shoe factory, a supermarket, a sales outlet, an assembly plant, a hotel, or a local airline.' We know know that whatever community, whatever nation we may belong to as citizens, we are residents of this earth: that we are bound together and will be increasingly bound together, as we make greater and better use of the air, in a common fate: the fate of this small planet which to all of us is home. Because of aviation, men are beginning to think of themselves and of their earth in different terms -- terms which make war -- ultimate war -- less and less acceptable."

"A century ago and for three brief decades, our nation held that world leadership. A small country, confined to our Atlantic coast, when our vital sea commerce was crowded from the seas by stronger competitors, America rose to claim her rightful maritime birthright. Inspired in this cause our merchants provided the capital, our shipwrights the genius, our master mariners the driving power that brought into being a new maritime force. From our seaports raced forth a new breed of ocean craft, the Clippers, of such sharp-cut lines and towering masts as had never before been seen upon the seas. With hard-driving Yankee masters on their quarter decks, they raced through gales and over endless seas, lee rails awash, tall-rigging, taut with full-blown sails, to sweep our flag to a leadership upon the Seven Seas that was never successfully to be challenged in the days of sail. And in these thirty years our commerce mounted, our prestige among the nations rose, the standard of living of our people increased at a rate which has never since been equaled in our history."

"But the age of iron and steam was coming and we were unprepared. Our place upon the seas was soon forgotten as the manpower of the nation and its industry moved westward to develop the richest land empire the world has ever known."

"We are confident that a close study of the present trend will lead to the realization of truly tremendous progress in the crossing of ocean barriers and the linking the world continents closer by air transportation within the next few years."

"Today, the frontier of our great west is behind us. Once again we have come to a realization, just as did our forefathers in the days of sail, that America’s position among the nations of the world, the prosperity of our industry and commerce, the welfare of all our people is inseparably bound up in the advancement of our foreign trade."

"Thirty-five years ago America gave the world the airplane. But other nations developed it. Soon after the world war, the great transports of European nations were flying over age-old trade routes to Asia, Africa, and South America to assure for the countries a greater share of the world’s commerce. For many years America only watched."

"Well, the only way, the only reason to go to war, at any time, uh, is to overthrow a government that's doing something you don't like. And if you announce at the outset that you are not going to overthrow the government, then, so far as I’m concerned ah, you should come home immediately."

"One must remember that the North Vietnamese, under Ho Chi Minh, had been fighting ah, first the French, then the Japanese, then the French again, and now the Americans. And they were professionals in every sense. Ah, the South Vietnamese, on the other hand, were ah, primarily those ah, that were ah, more or less, uh, under the command of the French, and had ah, never had an opportunity to uh, develop leadership."