As you might imagine, I am not the man behind the lens for this photograph but my maternal grandfather, Fred, certainly was – an earlier post shows him standing centre stage at the Sphinx his folding camera in hand. During the Great War he was a mechanic with the Royal Flying Corps training school at Aboukir in Egypt; if you click on “Fred” in the tag cloud, previous posts explain his story
The severely tilted aircraft is probably an Airco D.H.9. A colleague from my IT days who writes on the subject of early flying provides this interesting insight: This is unlikely to have been a crash from height – the aircraft is too intact for that. It is more likely that a trainee pilot made a heavy landing, and by a mixture of throttle mismanagement and a lack of control, managed to bounce his way towards the hangar.
Click on the image to enlarge and there is surprising detail and untold stories in the photograph – the canvas is torn back on the lower wing to reveal its delicate construction; why is the character in the hat sat on the ground and what is that upturned canvas covered object next to him; look closely and there are actually two aircraft in the background and what is the man with the pole about to do!
Without doubt, these are young men from another time where risk is a daily part of their lives.
northumbrian : light 
I love photographs like this. The word ‘CRUMP!’ springs to mind.
Exactly right Brian – followed by OUCH! 🙂
I noticed that person on the ground right away. Very strange!
I like to think he has been thrown safely clear from the aircraft – seems unlikely but I will pretend.
What an amazing picture … heading off now to read about Fred 🙂
Many thanks – hope you enjoy reading about Fred
Agree that the plane should be destroyed if crashed from a height and a resultant explosion perhaps. Interesting photo for sure.
Indeed, it is remarkably intact, lets hope the same applied to the pilots.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing… 🙂
Indeed, lets hope he did 🙂
Looks like someone wasn’t paying attention! 🙂
You can be sure he didn’t make the same mistake twice 🙂
Great pic. Thanks for sharing. I love knowing the story behind the photo. http://holley4734.wordpress.com/
Thanks for taking the time to look – I am fortunate – I have quite a lot of information and photos about my grandfather’s life – they never threw anything away, no matter how seemingly trivial.
ooops!! and how on earth are they going to get it down. Perhaps the man with the pole hopes to lever it down?
I think the man with the pole might be looking for the pilot – it reminds me of this:
Sybil: (Seeing Basil walking down the road with a large garden gnome) Where are you going Basil?
Basil: Just going to see O’Reilly dear. Then I might go to Canada.
🙂
lol…always love a bit of Faulty Towers!
It’s amazing to see how at ease the men are around the plane. You describe the context well, this shows an important historic time when risk was a normal part of life. Hard to imagine this now. Such an important image.
Thanks Lita – I am very fortunate to have a collection of images from my grandfather’s time in Egypt during the Great War.
Great rreading this