Proverbs, aphorisms, quotations (English) | by Linux fortune |
Did you know that the voice tapes easily identify the Russian pilot that shot down the Korean jet? At one point he definitely states: "Natasha! First we shoot jet, then we go after moose and squirrel." -- ihuxw!tommyo | |
LILO, you've got me on my knees! (from David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the Dominos, and Werner Almsberger) | |
MVS Air Lines: The passengers all gather in the hangar, watching hundreds of technicians check the flight systems on this immense, luxury aircraft. This plane has at least 10 engines and seats over 1,000 passengers; bigger models in the fleet can have more engines than anyone can count and fly even more passengers than there are on Earth. It is claimed to cost less per passenger mile to operate these humungous planes than any other aircraft ever built, unless you personally have to pay for the ticket. All the passengers scramble aboard, as do the 200 technicians needed to keep it from crashing. The pilot takes his place up in the glass cockpit. He guns the engines, only to realise that the plane is too big to get through the hangar doors. | |
...the Soviets have the capability to try big projects. If there is a goal, such as when Gorbachev states that they are going to have nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, the case is closed -- that is it. They will concentrate on the problem, do a bad job, and later pay the price. They really don't care what the price is. -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 | |
There is something you must understand about the Soviet system. They have the ability to concentrate all their efforts on a given design, and develop all components simulateously, but sometimes without proper testing. Then they end up with a technological disaster like the Tu-144. In a technology race at the time, that aircraft was two months ahead of the Concorde. Four Tu-144s were built; two have crashed, and two are in museums. The Concorde has been flying safely for over 10 years. -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 | |
DE: The Soviets seem to have difficulty implementing modern technology. Would you comment on that? Belenko: Well, let's talk about aircraft engine lifetime. When I flew the MiG-25, its engines had a total lifetime of 250 hours. DE: Is that mean-time-between-failure? Belenko: No, the engine is finished; it is scrapped. DE: You mean they pull it out and throw it away, not even overhauling it? Belenko: That is correct. Overhaul is too expensive. DE: That is absurdly low by free world standards. Belenko: I know. -- an interview with Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 102 | |
"I have a friend who just got back from the Soviet Union, and told me the people there are hungry for information about the West. He was asked about many things, but I will give you two examples that are very revealing about life in the Soviet Union. The first question he was asked was if we had exploding television sets. You see, they have a problem with the picture tubes on color television sets, and many are exploding. They assumed we must be having problems with them too. The other question he was asked often was why the CIA had killed Samantha Smith, the little girl who visited the Soviet Union a few years ago; their propaganda is very effective. -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 100 | |
"...I could accept this openness, glasnost, perestroika, or whatever you want to call it if they did these things: abolish the one party system; open the Soviet frontier and allow Soviet people to travel freely; allow the Soviet people to have real free enterprise; allow Western businessmen to do business there, and permit freedom of speech and of the press. But so far, the whole country is like a concentration camp. The barbed wire on the fence around the Soviet Union is to keep people inside, in the dark. This openness that you are seeing, all these changes, are cosmetic and they have been designed to impress shortsighted, naive, sometimes stupid Western leaders. These leaders gush over Gorbachev, hoping to do business with the Soviet Union or appease it. He will say: "Yes, we can do business!" This while his military machine in Afghanistan has killed over a million people out of a population of 17 million. Can you imagine that? -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 | |
"Remember Kruschev: he tried to do too many things too fast, and he was removed in disgrace. If Gorbachev tries to destroy the system or make too many fundamental changes to it, I believe the system will get rid of him. I am not a political scientist, but I understand the system very well. I believe he will have a "heart attack" or retire or be removed. He is up against a brick wall. If you think they will change everything and become a free, open society, forget it!" -- Victor Belenko, MiG-25 fighter pilot who defected in 1976 "Defense Electronics", Vol 20, No. 6, pg. 110 | |
FORTUNE PROVIDES QUESTIONS FOR THE GREAT ANSWERS: #31 A: Chicken Teriyaki. Q: What is the name of the world's oldest kamikaze pilot? | |
A bunch of Polish scientists decided to flee their repressive government by hijacking an airliner and forcing the pilot to fly them to the West. They drove to the airport, forced their way on board a large passenger jet, and found there was no pilot on board. Terrified, they listened as the sirens got louder. Finally, one of the scientists suggested that since he was an experimentalist, he would try to fly the aircraft. He sat down at the controls and tried to figure them out. The sirens got louder and louder. Armed men surrounded the jet. The would be pilot's friends cried out, "Please, please take off now!!! Hurry!!!" The experimentalist calmly replied, "Have patience. I'm just a simple pole in a complex plane." | |
Earl Wiener, 55, a University of Miami professor of management science, telling the Airline Pilots Association (in jest) about 21st century aircraft: "The crew will consist of one pilot and a dog. The pilot will nurture and feed the dog. The dog will be there to bite the pilot if he touches anything. -- Fortune, Sept. 26, 1988 [the *magazine*, silly!] | |
If you rap your knuckles against a window jamb or door, if you brush your leg against a bed or desk, if you catch your foot in a curled- up corner of a rug, or strike a toe against a desk or chair, go back and repeat the sequence. You will find yourself surprised how far off course you were to hit that window jamb, that door, that chair. Get back on course and do it again. How can you pilot a spacecraft if you can't find your way around your own apartment? -- William S. Burroughs | |
The Next Big Thing: "Clairvoyant Consultants" Nobody likes to deal with tech support or customer service reps. A growing number of people are getting sick of being put on hold for three hours and then paying ridiculous "per incident" fees so some Microserf can tell them to "reinstall the operating system!" Desperate users are turning to an unlikely source to diagnose and fix software problems: psychics. Palm[Pilot] readers, 1-900 number operators, and clairvoyant consultants are quickly becoming the hottest careers in the tech sector. Explained Madam Cosmos, owner of the Main Street Mysticism Temple in Keokuk, Iowa, "With my special powers, I can track down the source of any problem. Got a rogue Registry entry that's causing Bluescreens? I'll find it. Missing a curly bracket in your Perl program but can't locate it because the error messages are so unhelpful? I'll know where it is even before you walk in my door." | |
An elderly couple were flying to their Caribbean hideaway on a chartered plane when a terrible storm forced them to land on an uninhabited island. When several days passed without rescue, the couple and their pilot sank into a despondent silence. Finally, the woman asked her husband if he had made his usual pledge to the United Way Campaign. "We're running out of food and water and you ask *that*?" her husband barked. "If you really need to know, I not only pledged a half million but I've already paid them half of it." "You owe the U.W.C. a *quarter million*?" the woman exclaimed euphorically. "Don't worry, Harry, they'll find us! They'll find us!" | |
Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in a fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed. What kind of man would live where there is no daring? And is life so dear that we should blame men for dying in adventure? Is there a better way to die? -- Charles Lindbergh | |
In Columbia, Pennsylvania, it is against the law for a pilot to tickle a female flying student under her chin with a feather duster in order to get her attention. | |
In Lowes Crossroads, Delaware, it is a violation of local law for any pilot or passenger to carry an ice cream cone in their pocket while either flying or waiting to board a plane. | |
In Pocataligo, Georgia, it is a violation for a woman over 200 pounds and attired in shorts to pilot or ride in an airplane. | |
LILO, you've got me on my knees! -- David Black, dblack@pilot.njin.net, with apologies to Derek and the Dominos, and Werner Almsberger | |
BELA LUGOSI is my co-pilot ... |