If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing.
Interpretation
A successful landing is one where everyone walks away safely, and an exceptional one allows for continued use of the aircraft.
This quote from Chuck Yeager emphasizes the significance of safety in aviation. It suggests that the true measure of a landing's success is not just about completing the landing itself, but also about ensuring the safety of everyone on board. If the aircraft can be used again the next day, it marks an extraordinary outcome, highlighting the importance of proper landing techniques and safety protocols in aviation.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a flight safety seminar to highlight the importance of safe landings.
I have flown in just about everything, with all kinds of pilots in all parts of the world - British, French, Pakistani, Iranian, Japanese, Chinese - and there wasn't a dime's worth of difference between any of them except for one unchanging, certain fact: the best, most skillful pilot has the most experience.
The best pilots fly more than the others; that's why they're the best.
There's no such thing as a natural-born pilot.
When I was picked to fly the X-1, it was my duty to fly it, and I did.
It wasn't that the X-1 would kill you, it was the systems in the X-1 that would kill you.
All that I am ... I owe to the Air Force.
Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
The reformation was preceded by the discovery of America, as if the Almighty graciously meant to open a sanctuary to the persecuted in future years, when home should afford neither friendship nor safety.
Even when safety guidelines and regulations are in place, the rate of chemicals acceptable by law may be far higher than what is genuinely safe.
If the Republican Party continues to take the view that there must be no tax increases, we're stuck. Capitalism can't work without safety nets or fiscal prudence, and we need both in a sustainable balance.
When the dust settles and the pages of history are written, it will not be the angry defenders of intolerance who have made the difference. The reward will go to those who dared to step outside the safety of their privacy in order to expose and rout the prevailing prejudices.
Courage is what preserves our liberty, safety, life, and our homes and parents, our country and children. Courage comprises all things.
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