Words matter. These are the best Test Pilot Quotes from famous people such as Elon Musk, Jonathan Winters, David Mackay, Alan G. Poindexter, Paul Allen, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I would like to fly in space. Absolutely. That would be cool. I used to just do personally risky things, but now I’ve got kids and responsibilities, so I can’t be my own test pilot. That wouldn’t be a good idea. But I definitely want to fly as soon as it’s a sensible thing to do.
As a kid, I always wanted to be lots of things. I was a Walter Mitty type. I wanted to be in the French Foreign Legion, a detective, a doctor, a test pilot with a scarf, a fisherman who hauled in a tremendous marlin after a 12-hour fight.
Not long after I got my test pilot qualification, I realised there was no manned space flight programme in the U.K., and there was unlikely to be one.
I flew fighters for the Navy in San Diego for three years, went and did my post-graduate education, and then I was a test pilot in Patuxent River, Maryland, for a few years. I was back in the fleet in the Navy when I was selected to come back here to NASA to become an astronaut.
Somehow, I knew you had to have perfect eyesight to be a test pilot, and so that was it for my astronaut career.
I loved being a test pilot, and so being an astronaut was – was not my end point in, you know, either I achieved success by being an astronaut, or if I don’t get picked, I’m not successful. I loved my career as a pilot, and it was a bonus to be selected as an astronaut.
Two months after I got out of test pilot school, I saw an advert that said NASA was recruiting more astronauts. The best job you could have as a test pilot was being an astronaut, so I volunteered.
Astronauts working for the government will always need to be either pilots or mission specialists. Those who want to be pilots should have military experience – ideally, a test pilot background.
When a test pilot comes off a flight, there is typically another pilot who is going to take it up, and he believes in the debriefing. You don’t keep something to yourself.
I got this letter asking me if I wanted to or if I would consider going to experimental test pilot school and becoming the first Negro astronaut and I thought it was crazy.
And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots, that was an epiphany that just came like a stroke of lightning.
As a military pilot and a test pilot, handling unusual situations and aircraft malfunctions was part of the business.
You know, being a test pilot isn’t always the healthiest business in the world.
