Austrian Airfields

When one looks at photos of Austro-Hungarian aircraft lined up at airfields, they seemed to always have the tails up on saw-horses or some other prop. Why was this? Just for show, save the tail skid, or some other reason?
Just curious.
-Ryan

Hi Ryan,I think saving the tail skid is the most probable reason.Infact the tail skid was kept in tension by means of a gum elastic belt (made of caoutchouc or similar).When the tail was down the belt was in tension and of course had the tendence to slack.Stated the true rarity of such gummish materials in the Dual Monarchy probably tails were raised to prevent these belts to rapidly slack and to be substitued too often.
VBR
Andrea