GREAT AVIATION QUOTES
CHARLES LINDBERGH

Are there any mechanics here?

Charles Lindbergh

First words upon arrival in Paris after first solo transatlantic flight, 10:22 local time 21 May 1927. Quoted in the 1993 biography of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Loss of Eden.

Newspapers at the time posted now discredited accounts with his first words being things like “Is this Paris?” and “I'm ”. Lindbergh’s second sentence was the usual query of the American tourist, “Does anyone here speak English?”

This fellow [Charles Lindbergh] will never make it. He's doomed.

Harry Guggenheim

After studying The Spirit of St. Louis at Curtiss Field, 1927.

I learned that danger is relative, and the inexperience can be a magnifying glass.

Charles Lindbergh

The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953.

Flying has torn apart the relationship of space and time; it uses our old clock but with new yardsticks.

Charles Lindbergh

The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953.

Defeat and death stared him in the face and he gazed at it unafraid, intent only on the task he had set himself.

Russell Owen

Rather breathless front page story in The New York Times, describing the departure of Charles Lindbergh from New York, 21 May 1927. At time of publication he was last “sighted passing St. John’s, N.F.” and the success of what became the first solo flight across the North Atlantic was unknown. The two-page dispatch started:

“A sluggish, gray monoplane lurched its way down Roosevelt Field yesterday morning, slowly gathering momentum. Inside sat a tall youngster, eyes glued to an instrument board or darting ahead for swift glances at the runway, his face drawn with the intensity of his purpose.

Death lay but a few seconds ahead of him if his skill failed or his courage faltered. For moments, as the heavy plane rose from the ground, dropped down, staggered again into the air and fell, he gambled for his life against a hazard which had already killed four men.”

But I have seen the science I worshiped, and the airplane I loved, destroying the civilization I expected them to serve.

Charles Lindbergh

Time magazine, 26 May 1967.

Not so long ago, when I was a student in college, just flying an airplane seemed a dream. But that dream turned into reality.

Charles A. Lindbergh

Beginning his autobiography, The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953.

The first company to produce a certified two seat electric aircraft with a 1.5 hour range will dominate the aviation training market.

Erik Lindbergh

Grandson of Charles Lindbergh and on the board of the X Prize Foundation, 29 September 2011.

Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes.

Charles Lindbergh

Autobiography of Values, 1977.

I am glad to see that you are riding the airlines. I hope you either take up parachute jumping or stay out of single motored planes at night.

Charles Lindbergh

To Wiley Post, 17 May 1931. Quoted in the 1993 book Will Rogers: A Biography.

I owned the world that hour as I rode over it — free of the earth, free of the mountains, free of the clouds, but how inseparably I was bound to them.

Charles Lindbergh

On flying above the Rocky Mountains. Quoted in the 1976 book Lindbergh: A Biography.

CAN BUILD PLANE SIMILAR M ONE BUT LARGER WINGS CAPABLE OF MAKING FLIGHT COST ABOUT SIX THOUSAND WITH MOTOR AND INSTRUMENTS DELIVERY ABOUT THREE MONTHS

Donald Hall

Chief engineer, Ryan Airlines, next day reply to Charles Lindbergh’s request for feasibility of the airplane later known as The Spirit of St. Louis. M refers to their Model M. Westerrn Union telegram from San Diego, California, 4 February 1927.

Charles A. Lindbergh

Born 1902, Michigan
Died 1974, Maui

“… If I take the wings of the morning,
and dwell in the innermost parts of the sea …”

C. A. L.

The unadorned flat-to-the-ground gravestone of Charles A. Lindbergh

He died of cancer on the island of Maui, Hawaii, on 26 August 1974. He was buried three hours later in simple work clothes. The quote is from Psalms 139:9-10.

What kind of man would live where there is no danger? I don’t believe in taking foolish chances. But nothing can be accomplished by not taking a chance at all.

Charles Lindbergh

At a news conference after his trans-Atlantic flight, May 1927. Quoted in 2002 book Lindbergh: Flight’s Enigmatic Hero.

Sometimes, flying feels too godlike to be attained by man. Sometimes, the world from above seems too beautiful, too wonderful, too distant for human eyes to see.

Charles Lindbergh

The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953.

This is earth again, the earth where I’ve lived and now will live once more. Here are human beings … I’ve been to eternity and back. I know how the dead would feel to live again.

Charles Lindbergh

On sighting Ireland after first solo Atlantic crossing, 1927. In The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953.

How long can men thrive between walls of brick, walking on asphalt pavements, breathing the fumes of coal and of oil, growing, working, dying, with hardly a thought of wind, and sky, and fields of grain, seeing only machine-made beauty, the mineral-like quality of life?

Charles Lindbergh

Reader’s Digest, November 1939.

Accuracy means something to me. It’s vital to my sense of values. I’ve learned not to trust people who are inaccurate. Every aviator knows that if mechanics are inaccurate, aircraft crash. If pilots are inaccurate, they get lost — sometimes killed. In my profession life itself depends on accuracy.

Charles A. Lindbergh

The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953.

It was over in a blink of an eye, that moment when aviation stirred the modern imagination. Aviation was transformed from recklessness to routine in Lindbergh’s lifetime. Today the riskiest part of air travel is the drive to the airport, and the airlines use a barrage of stimuli to protect passengers from ennui.

George Will

Charles Lindbergh, Craftsman, 15 May 1977. In The pursuit of Happiness, and Other Sobering Thoughts, 1978.

Trees become bushes; barns, toys; cows turn into rabbits as we climb. I lose all conscious connection with the past. I live only in the moment in this strange, unmortal space, crowded with beauty, pierced with danger. The horizon retreats, and veils itself in haze. The great, squared fields of Nebraska become patchwork on a planet’s disk.

Charles Lindbergh

The Spirit of St. Louis, 1953.