Success flourishes only in perseverance--ceaseless, restless perseverance.” Baron Manfred von Richthofen (1892-1918); Former Fighter Pilot
Two months after I got out of test pilot school, I saw an advert that said NASA was recruiting more astronauts. The best job you could have as a test pilot was being an astronaut, so I volunteered.
And so, I was not a military test pilot, but as soon as NASA expressed an interest in flying scientists and people who were not military test pilots, that was an epiphany that just came like a stroke of lightning.
Very few pilots even know how to read Morse code anymore. But if a pilot could read Morse code, he could tell which beacon he was approaching by the code that was flashing from it.
When I get on a plane, I don't want a laid-back pilot. I want a pilot who is a control freak, who is paying attention to every single detail of his job.
The pilot is a sales tool; it introduces you to the characters and might set the template for what the show is meant to be, but there's so many boxes you have to check off on a pilot that it can sort of hurt the storytelling in a way.
I've heard that George Clooney did something like nine pilots before 'ER' was picked up, way back when he was doing TV. It's just the way the business works. There are a lot of pilots that we've never seen. It's protocol.
Many pilots of the time were the opinion that a fighter pilot in a closed cockpit was an impossible thing, because you should smell the enemy. You could smell them because of the oil they were burning.
I've actually done three pilots for Disney. I met with the network when I was 16 years old and had just started acting. I would fly to Los Angeles to film pilots, then fly back to Dallas, where I grew up.
Pilot season in L.A. is just this blood bath. They make so many pilots, and such a small percentage are picked up. And then if you are picked up, there are so many variables. You have to get a good time slot, and you have to get promoted. And then yo...
For the last four or five years, I had been in the position where I didn't have to take a pilot. I took this one because the script and the people were terrific. It never frightened me. As we were doing the pilot, I could tell that it was working.
Liaison Man: You mean for this "space race", you don't want our best pilots? Recruiter: I didn't say that. We want the best pilots that we can get.
Having kids has proven to be this amazing - for me, this amazing source of ideas of anecdotes, of examples, I can test my own kids without human subject permission, so they pilot - I pilot my ideas on them. And so it is a tremendous advantage to have...
And she thought then how strange it was that disaster--the sort of disaster that drained the blood from your body and took the air out of your lungs and hit you again and again in the face--could be at times, such a thing of beauty.
As I slowly managed to take what I had learned into a transition from contestant to announcer and warm-up, I first had to prove myself on pilots. And as you know, many pilots are taped for each show that is lucky enough to breakthrough to being a ser...
I started to book good television jobs in 2010. I started to get really close to exceptional jobs in 2011, and then I got 'Arrow' in 2012. I know how lucky I am because just getting the lead in a pilot doesn't guarantee that that pilot is going to tu...
I started playing the guitar when we started filming the pilot to 'Lost in Space,' which was way back in December of 1964, and there's a little bit in the pilot that was used in the first season where Will Robinson is sitting around some bad foam rub...
Jim Lovell: [Jim sits down in the pilot's seat intended for Jack Swigert] Sorry Jack, it's an old habit. Kinda used to the pilot's seat. Jim Lovell: [gets out of the seat] She's yours to fly.
Chuck Yeager: [NASA recruiters are talking to test pilots] You need lab rabbits. Recruiter: Sorry, I didn't get that. Chuck Yeager: I said you need lab rabbits to curl up in your damn capsule. With its heart going "pitter-patter". And a wire up the k...
I remember the thrill that was mine when, in one of my first meetings, I led my first soul to Christ in America. And he was one of my own countrymen.
When I first began doing TV pilots, my expectations were high. I didn't understand that world. So when 'Weeds' took off, I was so happy. Especially as I was just a guest star in the pilot. But once it got picked up, they made me a regular cast member...
