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Tips for student pilots. From Dub.

1. Takeoffs are optional. Landings are mandatory.

2. If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull
the stick back, they get smaller.

3. Flying isn't dangerous. Crashing is dangerous.

4. It's always better to be down here wishing you were up there than up
there wishing you were down here.

5. The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

6. The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep
the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start
sweating.

7. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided
with the sky.

8. A "good" landing is one from which you can walk away. A "great"
landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

9. Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to
make all of them yourself.

10. You know you've landed with the wheels up if it takes full power to
taxi to the ramp.

11. The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle
of arrival. Large angle of arrival equals a small probability of
survival -- and vice versa.

12. Never let an airplane take you somewhere your brain didn't get to
five minutes earlier.

13. Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about
might be another airplane going in the opposite direction.

14. Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide
out in clouds.

15. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing.

Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

16. You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience.
The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of
luck.

17. Keep looking around. There's always something you've missed.

18. If all you can see out of the windscreen is ground that's going
round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the
passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.

19. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going
hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the
ground has yet to lose.

20. Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, experience
usually comes from bad judgment.

21. It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as
much as possible.

22. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are,
however, no old, bold pilots.

23. Remember, gravity is not just a good idea. It's the law. And it's
not subject to repeal.

24. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the
number of takeoffs you've made.

25. The three most useless things to a pilot are altitude above you,
runway behind you, and a tenth of a second ago.

And a bonus tip:

Helicopters can't fly; they're just so ugly the earth repels them.

Thanks for the ping JustAmy.

Helicopters can't fly; they're just so ugly the earth repels them.

Another list; for old Vietnam helicopter pilots.

Why:

1. Why did they call it Collective Pitch? I never collected any. Usually I ran out of it about the same time as altitude and airspeed.

2. Why didn't Ma Bell add more left pedal and aft cyclic? I always had lots of right pedal and forward cyclic. It seems like they could have reduced those and added to the ones we needed.

3. Why did they put the only radio (KY-28) that had to be recovered if you went down in the most inaccessible part of the aircraft?

4. Why did the pilots have armored seats but the Chief and Gunner didn't?

5. Why did situations that called for all the torque the engine could produce also require full use of the anti-torque pedal followed by that damn flashing red light? (Seems contradictory)

6. Why did they call them Hammerhead stalls? Maybe because only a hammer head would try one in a helicopter.

7. Why did I always get an aircraft with a major 1 to 1 when I had a hangover? (For you non-rotor heads, a "1 to 1" is a vertical vibration that pounds you into the seat and quakes through your body one time for each revolution of the main rotor - usually at a rate of app. 294-324 RPM, and the faster you fly, the harder it pounds After a while it begins to hurt, ---even if you don't have a hangover.)

8. Why didn't Ma Bell make the skin out of duct tape so it would match the patches?

9. Why did they make a main rotor system that could cut down small Sequoia trees, and a tail rotor system that self-distructed if it encountered anything bigger than a bumblebee?

10. Why were they called landing skids? Were they intended for landing or skidding?

11. Why did the amount of time I had to spend in an LZ increase exponentially with the amount of fire I was receiving?

12. Why didn't 33 beer taste any better cold than it did hot?

13. Why did the smoke from the s**t barrel always blow towards my tent/hooch?

14. Why was the PX always out of everything on my day off? And the biggest question of all.......

15. Why does a Bell helicopter have unusual noises that can only be heard at night or while in the clouds?