“Being alone in an aeroplane for even so short a time as a night and a day, irrevocably alone, with nothing to observe but your instruments and your own hands in semi-darkness, nothing to contemplate but the size of your small courage, nothing to wonder about but the beliefs, the faces, and the hopes rooted in your mind - such an experience can be as startling as the first awareness of a stranger walking by your side at night. You are the stranger.” CourageStrangerFlyingAloneHopes Book:West with the Night Source: West with the Night
“Night flying over the charted country by the aid of instruments and radio guidance can still be a lonely business, but to fly in unbroken darkness without even the cold companionship of a pair of ear-phones or the knowledge that somewhere ahead are lights and life and a well-marked airport is something more than just lonely. It is at times unreal to the point where the existence of other people seems not even a reasonable probability. The hills, the forests, the rocks, and the plains are one with the darkness, and the darkness is infinite. The earth is no more your planet than is a distant star — if a star is shining; the plane is your planet and you are its sole inhabitant.” NightDarknessSolitudeFlyingPilot Book:West with the Night Source: West with the Night
“all the science of flying has been captured in the breadth of an instrument board, but not the religion of it.” Has BeensInstrumentsFlyingBoardsCapturedBreadth Book:The Illustrated West with the Night Source: The Illustrated West with the Night
“Harmony comes gradually to a pilot and his plane. The wing does not want so much to fly true as to tug at the hands that guide it; the ship would rather hunt the wind than lay her nose to the horizon far ahead. She has a derelict quality in her character; she toys with freedom and hints at liberation, but yields her own desires gently.” WantDoeCharacterHandsDesireQualityWindHarmonyLaysWingsGuidesFlyingShipsLiberationPlanesNosesAviationYieldHorizonPilotsToysHuntsHintsGreat AviationPilots And FlyingDerelict Book:West with the Night Source: West with the Night
