Here are some of my favorite quotes from aces of o.a. WWII and WWI and VN.
Good flying never killed [an enemy] yet.
Up there the world is divided into bastards and suckers. Make your choice.
The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down.
-- General Chuck Yeager, USAF, describing his first confrontation with a Me262.
Willie, how long can you tread water?
-- Commander Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, USN, after his and Willie's F-4 took a missile hit over NVN and he dashed for the coast.
Go in close, and when you think you are too close, go in closer.
^
To true, as i myself have found out painfully when i lost my wingmate and i faced 3 zero's alone. Though i crippeled the fools and shot em down.
A fighter without a gun . . . is like an airplane without a wing.
I was a pilot flying an airplane and it just so happened that where I was flying made what I was doing spying.
-- Francis Gary Power, U-2 reconnaissance pilot held by the Soviets for spying, in an interview after he was returned to the US.
The Yo-Yo is very difficult to explain. It was first perfected by the well-known Chinese fighter pilot Yo-Yo Noritake. He also found it difficult to explain, being quite devoid of English.
If you're in a fair fight, you didn't plan it properly.
-- Nick Lappos, Chief R&D Pilot, Sikorsky Aircraft.
The British were sporting. They would accept a fight under almost all conditions.
-- Gunther Rall, Luftwaffe, 275 victories.
Every day kill just one, rather than today five, tomorrow ten . . . that is enough for you. Then your nerves are calm and you can sleep good, you have your drink in the evening and the next morning you are fit again.
-- Colonel Erich 'Bubi' Hartmann, Luftwaffe.
If I should come out of this war alive, I will have more luck than brains.
-- Captain Manfred Baron von Richtofen, in a letter to his mother upon being decorated with the Iron Cross.
All are real, not one of those are fake.