• A typical pilot is a confused soul who talks about women when he is flying and about aeroplanes when he is with a woman
• A comment about how well things are going is a sure guarantee of trouble
• Winds aloft are of most use to historians
• A greaser landing is 50% luck; two in a row are all luck; three in a row and someone’s lying
• The more traffic at an airport and the fewer controllers, the better it is running
• The Owner’s Manual that comes with a £300 refrigerator is better than the one you get with a £30 million aeroplane
• If it doesn’t work, rename it
• “Please see me at once” memos from CFIs, Operations Managers, Chief Pilots and Team Leaders are only distributed at the end of a working week at 1800 hrs
• Flying skills and administrative ability are very rare in the same person. Thus, the average CFI is either right where he belongs or he’s a total misfit
• If an earthquake opened a 10 foot run way crack that caused a landing mishap, the investigation board would blame it on pilot error
• One hole in the clouds is worth 10 published let-down charts
• A thunderstorm is rarely as bad as it looks from the outside; usually it’s worse
• When talking about yesterday, a weather man is a scientist; when talking about tomorrow, he’s looking in a crystal bowl
• A good simulator performance is like a successful appendectomy on a cadaver
• A good ground school instructor understands flying the way an astronomer understands stars
• Any pilot who does not privately consider himself the best in the business is in the wrong business
• Every groundschool class includes one idiot who, at 1755 hrs, asks a question requiring a 20 minute answer
• Accepted checklist philosophy requires that pilots read to each other the things they do every day and recite from memory the things they do once every few years
• If it’s lousy here it’s probably clear where you’re going
• Any attempt to stretch fuel will coincide with an increase in headwind
• Jet and reciprocating engines operate on the same principle: suck and squeeze, blow and go
• It is usually easier to cope with one major in-flight problem than a series of minor ones – real trouble usually comes in small doses

And now some more rules, this time for the airlines:
• Most airline food tastes like chicken because most airline food is chicken
• Clocks lie; a 12-hour layover passes more quickly than a 6-hour trip
• The longer the trip, the greater the odds of having an inoperative autopilot
• There are four ways to fly: The right way, the wrong way, the company way and the captain’s way. Only one counts
• The captain is always right and even if he is not right, he is the captain
• Arguing with the captain is like arguing with a radar cop
• The tape that supports your version is certain to be erased by accident
• Nothing is more optimistic than than a dispatcher’s ETD