Funny story ???!!!

[Regulus]

Just one I wanted to share with you :

During the week of the 22 til the 29th November 1917 a testflight was done from Zeebrugge, Seeflugstation Flandern I,with a brandnew Hansa Brandeburg plane.

Now the pilot overdid himself a bit it seems (his name is not mentioned in the rapport !) which had the consequence that his observer, Lt.z.S.d.R. Rowehl, fell out of the plane at a hight of 100 meters !

Fortunately for him, straight into the water of the Nortsea, not at it's best temperature at this moment of the year. Looks more like a scene of an old slapstick movie.

Rowehl was taken with light injuries to the Feldlazarett 3 at Brugge. Seems the pilot had no problems landing his plane afterwards !

No as we usually talk about serious matters, this may be the moment to take it easy, have a good laugh and even learn something. Thats why I'm asking you this question :

Do you know a story that is also funny or really stupid ? I have a few more in the back of my pocket also !

Best from Regulus

Everyone has heard the story Of Louis Strange and the Jammed Lewis Gun Drum, What is amazing is that I understand that the story has independent verification from a German pilot who saw Strange dangling from the drum as the Nieuport headed down. You have got to figure that the German presumed that the Allied pilot didn't make it...

[G._Jacobs]

Hello All,

Most of these kinds of stories probably weren't very funny at the time, but later (after the participants lived through them) were good for lots of laughs over a few drinks.

One of my favorite stories involved the demise of Josef Jacobs' favorite Triplane.

Early on the morning of Oct.3, 1918, the British paid a surprise visit to the Jasta 7 aerodrome. They dropped a few bombs and strafed the airfield...and didn't even bother to bring doughnuts!

Josef jumped out of bed, put his flying suit on over his pyjamas and ran to his airplane, which the crew was already warming up. He managed to get airborne just as the visitors were coming in for another pass. He managed to shoot 2 of them down, but just as he was lining up another victim, his propeller broke. Whether it was defective or had been hit by enemy bullets or maybe an interruptor gear failure no one knows.

At any rate, he cut the engine and tried to glide down in a nearby farmer's field but was already at low altitude and the plane hit the ground hard, tearing away the undercarriage. It slid along the ground and crashed into a big pile of manure. Josef was helped out of the plane by the farmer's wife, but other than some cuts and bruises, he suffered no serious injuries. ???

Unfortunately, the black Triplane didn't fare as well. It was damaged beyond repair and had to be scrapped...a no doubt smelly job in this case. I suppose no one cared to collect fabric samples on that one! :P

In all an ignominous end to the last great Triplane still in frontline service.

Gary

Len Taplin had this happen to him, this is from the AFC website, cut and paste,

===================

Nine days after this first victory, Taplin was very nearly killed in a flying accident on 26 July 1918 at 4.20 AM. His bomb ladened Camel crashing during take off igniting the war load his aircraft was carrying. His Camel was loaded with a twenty pound phosphorous bomb , a twenty five pound high explosive bomb , hundreds of rounds of ammunition , a batch of Very light cartridges and a full tank of petrol. The whole collection exploded but Taplin escaped with nothing more than superficial burns in most part due to his presence of mind to undo his safety straps.

Cobby wrote in his book High Adventure of the incident, "[Taplin] had a memorable experience late in the month[July] that was funny to everyone except Tap himself. The incendiary bomb we were using was roughly egg-shaped with a couple of fins on it and about 18 inches long. It weighed about 50 lbs and was dangerous to handle .... it sometimes went off when you didnt want it to, and frequently did not go off when it should have .... Tap resolved that he would make sure one went off so he took off every safety device he could, and made some other adjustments. Then he and another chap, Oscar Ramsey, who had treated another similarly, started to leave about an hour and half before daylight with the intention of laying the eggs in the hangar of some unsuspicious Hun squadron .... About halfway through Tap's take off run, he ran into a rut and broke an axle causing, the machine to slew around in a circle and finished up on it's nose. Of course the incendiary bomb immediately exploded, setting the 'bus on fire, but Tap, with memories of the deadly Cooper, was leaving for points north "per bootem" as hard as he could go. He had covered about one hundred yards before the Cooper went off, and even he was lucky for pieces of this type of bomb, "daisy-cutter" frequently went beyond a hundred yards. Although his leather coat was pitted with phosphorous burns, he was untouched. In the meantime Ramsay, who had taken off a few seconds ahead so as to avoid a collision, saw the explosions and the fire from on top, and was chasing around in the dark to find the enemy who had dared to attack our aerodrome. Failing to do so, he returned to see what he could do to help us on the ground, and met Tap just returning from his cross country gallop."

===========================

Incidentally it appears in a couple of places, the common myth seems to be he was thrown from his Camel and hence survived. It appears that he knew the danger and ran. He got far enough away that no shrapnel penetrated his flying gear. The former makes for a better story though.



cam

Dear Friends,
* I'll be padding my score for the rest of this afternoon; here goes...

GUESS YOU HAD TO BE THERE Dept. (from FLYING FURY)

*McCudden tells of another observer who decided to 'give it 'em back', by jerry-rigging a number of grenades to his Morane Parasol; their releases were a number of strings which he taped to the back of the pilot's seat.
*On "Der Tag", the engine was started, the plane began to move, presumeably then hitting a rut; result-- BOOM!
*It seems the grenades were all prematurely released; miraculously, pilot and observer were unhurt. Either it's my creative memory or McCudden did describe the indescribable expression on the observer's blackened face...

FISH? WITH A KNIFE? Dept. (from Udet's autobiography)

*In one of the later chapters, Udet tells of a shot-down Englishman who was a guest in the pilot's mess before being carted off to captivity. At one point, the prisoner asks to be excused, so that he might visit the lavatory; to have escorted the man would have been to doubt the word of an English officer, and less than chivalrous...
*Udet described the anxiety of all at the table in their charge's absence (would he try to escape?) and how all eyes followed the Englishmen's feet as he ventured into the latrine; having relieved himself, the Germans were in turn relieved upon his return. If memory serves, there was a scramble of sorts back to the mess table, so that when the Brit re-entered the room, all was smiles and good cheer, as if nothing had happened...

IT'S EVEN FUNNIER IN THE ORIGINAL Dept. (from MvR's autobiography)

*Now it can be told: the Baron actually made a joke:
*"It is strange that everyone who came to know Boelcke imagined he was his one true friend. I have met about forty of these 'one true' friends of Boelcke, *and each imagined that he indeed was THE one true friend. Men whose names Boelcke never knew believed they were especially close to him. It was a strange phenomenon that I have observed only in Boelcke...
* [Now here comes the punchline; you VILL laugh - C.L.]
*"The one who was perhaps closet to Boelcke was THE ONE WHO COLLIDED WITH HIM."

SO THAT'S HOW IT'S DONE Dept. (from the on-line background material of the original RED BARON game)

*Charles Nungesser, in talking about his many combats and his prediliction for getting wounded, is reported to have said (and please excuse my paraphrasing): "Having closed-in on my enemy, and just before opening fire, I close my eyes; when I open them again, either I have another victory or I'm in the hospital."

*[Read the SPAD XIII thread about him, under "Aircraft"; that Charles, you just gotta love him!]

[Billy_Bishop]

Everyone has heard the story Of Louis Strange and the Jammed Lewis Gun Drum, What is amazing is that I understand that the story has independent verification from a German pilot who saw Strange dangling from the drum as the Nieuport headed down. You have got to figure that the German presumed that the Allied pilot didn't make it...

As I heard it, Strange was flying a Martinsyde Elephant, not a Nieuport.

VBR,

Al Lowe
(1 to go!!! This message is nr. 499)

That perhaps explains how it happened to begin with. Thanks to all those Cavalier stories I read when I was a kid, I was always under the impression that the Lewis gun was mounted in such a way so that it could be rocked or pivoted back to access the drum. If it were a field expediant mounting, Strange would have had to go through some contortions to reload...
I appreciate the knowledge.