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Silly aviation proverbs

“It has been certified for much more load elsewhere”

“The aircraft doesn’t know that it’s over gross”

Last Edited by mh at 18 Mar 00:58
mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

“The aircraft doesn’t know that it’s over gross”

But somehow the Hedge at the end of the Tarmac looks quite smug about it.

Last Edited by GA_Pete at 18 Mar 01:52
United Kingdom

Keep flying it all the way to the crash

…not ironic, although it is advisable to take your feet off the rudder pedals and adopt the brace position a few seconds before impact. The Cirrus community obviously do not need to follow this directive but have the ability to float down.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

A tailwheel aircraft does not stop flying until it is secured and in the hangar

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

You asked for silly ones. Of course this strictly speaking not a proverb, but more of a mantra from the good old days, before that silly CRM stuff when captains were Captains:

‘Gear up, Flaps up , Shut up’

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

aart wrote:

‘Gear up, Flaps up , Shut up’

Free German translation: Höhe halten, Fahrt halten, Kurs halten, Maul halten.

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

RobertL18C wrote:

A tailwheel aircraft does not stop flying until it is secured and in the hangar

“There are TW pilots who ground looped once and those who will”

Same for complex gear: “There are RG pilots who land gear up and those who will”
Other: “You know you are in RG up landing when it takes full power to taxi”

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

it is advisable to take your feet off the rudder pedals and adopt the brace position a few seconds before impact

I think that advice may, at best, be type-dependent. In the few airplane and helicopter crashes of which I have first- or second-hand knowledge of the pilot suffering no injury, a common factor seems to have been that he (for some reason, they are all male) carried on flying the plane until all kinetic and potential energy had been converted into mechanical work.

Even when an off-airport landing site looks decidedly sub-optimal, one can make a decent job of it if he pays attention:

Glenswinton, SW Scotland, United Kingdom

Runter kommen sie alle
is a German saying fairly wide-spread even among non pilots and means, roughly,
they all come/go down [eventually]

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

I heard a funny one at an FAA safety meeting many years ago on the subject of crashing (and the idea that you keep flying it till everything comes to rest if you are going to crash), that there had been an incident where a helicopter’s tail rotor had failed. The aircraft was still pirouetting across the airfield when tower asked “do you need any assistance”, and the pilot without missing a beat replied “I dunno, I ain’t done crashing yet!”

Andreas IOM
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