Dad is retiring
06-13-2013, 03:34 AM
#1
No Weekends For You!!
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jun 2013
Posts: 186
Dad is retiring
Hey folks!
My dad is retiring from a major airline after 32 years at the company. I want to make him a retirement gift that includes a nice quote about aviators and retirement. I have searched the world wide web, and can't find any good quotes that pertain to retirement, only strictly aviation quotes. Does anyone here have any good quotes, or know where to find any?
Any help is appreciated.
My dad is retiring from a major airline after 32 years at the company. I want to make him a retirement gift that includes a nice quote about aviators and retirement. I have searched the world wide web, and can't find any good quotes that pertain to retirement, only strictly aviation quotes. Does anyone here have any good quotes, or know where to find any?
Any help is appreciated.
06-13-2013, 04:09 AM
#2
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2009
Position: 127.0.0.1
Posts: 2,115
High Flight - Poem by John Magee
Back in the day when TV stations went off the air at midnight, they would play this and/or the National Anthem.
"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air. "Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God."
"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of -
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air. "Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand and touched the face of God."
06-13-2013, 05:59 AM
#5
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2008
Position: FAA 'Flight Check'
Posts: 13,837
There is that famous picture of the *old* airplane stuck in the tree with the usual saying:
Then you end it with "......BUT YOU MADE IT! CONGRATS"
See the picture here (bottom of page):
http://www.dlxflyer.com/5157/5199.html
or another newer version (which I don't like as much) here:
Aviation - Planet GIANT
Aviation in itself is not inherently dangerous,but to an even greater degree
than the sea; it is terribly unforgiving to carelessness, incapacity, or neglect.
than the sea; it is terribly unforgiving to carelessness, incapacity, or neglect.
See the picture here (bottom of page):
http://www.dlxflyer.com/5157/5199.html
or another newer version (which I don't like as much) here:
Aviation - Planet GIANT
06-13-2013, 06:56 AM
#7
Furloughed Again?!
Joined APC: Aug 2007
Position: Boeing 737
Posts: 4,796
Get him a plaque on one of those airfoils in front of Udvar Hazy at IAD. The Smithsonian lets you include a history of his career for the archives.
Did it for my Dad. Was meaningful to him and will be there for generations.
Did it for my Dad. Was meaningful to him and will be there for generations.
06-14-2013, 11:16 PM
#9
Line Holder
Joined APC: May 2010
Posts: 85
Call the tower and fire station at his final destination and give them a heads up. Tower can have all the local controllers congratulate him. Fire can roll the trucks for a water salute. Can also call Gander (or kzak, etc.) and have them send a send a cpdlc congrats message or selcal him a special congrats. Call his chief pilot and make sure they are aware it's his final flight and someone will be at the gate to congratulate him. For my old man's 37 years of service, I made sure everyone that I could contact made his last flight special.
06-15-2013, 06:43 PM
#10
Moderate Moderator
Joined APC: Mar 2008
Position: Curator at Static Display
Posts: 5,681
Ernest Hemingway
Don't know if your Dad was ever military, but I've always liked this one, from Hemingway. Published in Colliers in 1944, but he wrote it in 1938, while observing the Spanish Civil War:
"You love a lot of things if you live around them. But there isn't any woman and there isn't any horse, not any before nor after, that is as lovely as a great airplane. And men who love them are faithful to them even though they leave them for others. A man has one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely airplane he loses it to, there is where his heart will forever be."
"You love a lot of things if you live around them. But there isn't any woman and there isn't any horse, not any before nor after, that is as lovely as a great airplane. And men who love them are faithful to them even though they leave them for others. A man has one virginity to lose in fighters, and if it is a lovely airplane he loses it to, there is where his heart will forever be."
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