ABSTRACT
The airman ... delights in the ever changing patchwork of light and shadow on the earth’s surface, the toylike aspect of everything beneath, the wonderful variety of patterns which roads, rivers, valleys, forests and hedgerows provide in unbroken succession. (Supf cited in Duke and Lanchbery 1964, p. 243)
A Boeing 707 captain, looking back at the huge aircraft he [sic] has just brought down through fog to a silk-soft landing, has every right to be proud of the disciplined skills which enabled him to do it .... If a magic sort of X-ray photograph that showed the psychological factors inside him could ... be taken ... they would reveal an intelligent human being, conscious of his enormous responsibilities ..., highly skilled, courageous, conscientious – and very vulnerable. (Beaty 1969, pp. 16-25)
Are we going to apologise when something goes wrong? No, we’re f***ing not. Please understand. It does not matter how many times you write to us complaining that we wouldn’t put you up in a hotel because there was fog in Stansted. You didn’t pay us for it. (O’Leary cited in Johnson, 2004)1
We should shoot EU regulators and the airlines might be able to prosper. (O’Leary cited in Osborne, 2005)
Commercial aviation is constantly evolving. The above quotations capture the zeitgeist of the three ages of commercial flight, from the revelation, romance and risk of aviation’s pioneering days, to the technological advancement and studied seriousness of the Jet Age, to the unbridled commercialism and boldness (if not crassness?) of the industry in the New Millennium.
