C & T Auctions in England will be selling a photograph album from the First World War at its 'Printed Paper, Ephem[e]ra and Photographs Auction' tomorrow. The pictures were apparently taken by an unidentified pilot of the Royal Naval Air Service at Cranwell airfield. Amongst other things, they document a number of accidents to the trainee pilots there. Here are a selection of them.
At least those early aircraft flew slowly enough that one had a chance of surviving a crash, despite the lack of safety equipment!
Peter
"Oh, dear. Old boy pranged his kite, what?" Sorry, couldn't help myself, even writting a bad English accent's fun!
ReplyDeleteYep, they'll fly just fast enough to get you to the crash... :-)
ReplyDeleteAnd light enough that they don't severely damage the buildings, trees, wires, etc. that they hit. Only the other airplanes.
ReplyDeleteYeah, well, slow also means you have a lot more time to see it coming, scrunch your nether regions together, and more fully appreciate what is about to happen. Not so sure THAT is a good thing!!
ReplyDeleteThose guys apparently had a very steep learning curve.