Just Plane Trouble
Posted by striatic in Across The CommonsMeandering through The Commons often means discovering trends. Not only does The Commons have an interesting collection of early aviation photographs, but once I started sorting through that collection I noticed a rather disturbing trend.
Crashes!
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That’s Hugh Robinson, pioneer of early aviation, about to take a bath in the English Channel, some time in the 1910s. According to Wikipedia, Robinson survived no less than 15 crashes in his lifetime, dying in 1963 of natural causes |
 Library of Congres |
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Here are some captured World War I German planes being paraded around London in 1918. Not exactly gracious victors. Maybe this isn’t technically a crash, but it does illustrate our historical fascination with broken up airframes. |
 National Library of NZ |
| This Lockheed Hudson A16-10 Bomber from 1940 looks as though it has taken a punch to the mouth.
According to a reference in a Flickr comment, This aircraft was actually repaired and returned to flight status! |
 Powerhouse Museum |
| This is an image of wrecked Curtiss JN-4H “Jenny” airmail plane #39366. Army pilot Lt. Webb is visible climbing up the underbelly of his crashed plane.
Today we take for granted being able to send a bauble overnight across the continent, even the world. It’s amazing how difficult it was at first to send some letters just between two cities. |
 Smithsonian Institution |
| If, at the time, you had visions of avoiding such carnage by gently drifting through the air in a dirigible, this too would pose some problems.
… as this 1917 Zeppelin crashing on a house in Eemnes, Holland demonstrates. |
 Nationaal Archief |
| Of course, we’ve not sorted through all of the dangers of air travel even today. Though things are much safer, planes still fall from the sky.
Sometimes into farmers’ fields. This photo of an Eastern Air Liner crash landing in 1951 shows the problems continuing in later years. |
 Library of Virginia |
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So what grand lesson can we draw from this plethora of photos of busted aircraft in earlier times?
| Remember your parachute! |  |
Tags: Library of Virginia, Nationaal Archief, National Library of New Zealand, Powerhouse Museum, Smithsonian Institution
January 9th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
i tried to keep the inclusions here balanced across multiple institutions, but here’s a crashed plane from Nationaal Archief to go along with their deflated dirigible.
January 10th, 2009 at 2:51 am
I am SO glad that you are doing this blog. I love looking at old photographs like this and I look forward to going on the journey through the commons with you.
January 10th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Thank you, on behalf of all of us! I hope you’ll join us in our home in the Flickr Commons group and help chart that journey.
September 16th, 2009 at 11:02 am
[...] re-creates a fun Across the Commons first posted to this blog. Just Plane Trouble is a fun and insightful look at aeronautic [...]