- What flag is this? Royal Naval Ensign? - bior
Captured Russian Aeroplane (LOC)
Bain News Service,, publisher.
Captured Russian Aeroplane
[between ca. 1910 and ca. 1915]
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.
Notes:
Title from unverified data provided by the Bain News Service on the
negatives or caption cards.
Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).
Format: Glass negatives.
Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication.
Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
General information about the Bain Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain
Persistent URL: hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.17786
Call Number: LC-B2- 3293-5
Comments and faves
I was a teenage copywriter and Mr. Happy Face - Seasons Greetings :) added this photo to their favorites.
Mr. Happy Face - Seasons Greetings :) (13 months ago | reply)
Excellent :)
R0mP3 and nilacop added this photo to their favorites.
swanq (13 months ago | reply)
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_in_World_War_I #The_dawn_of...
says "The first aircraft brought down by another was an Austrian reconnaissance rammed on 8 September 1914, by Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov in Galicia in the Eastern Front (both planes crashed as the result of the attack killing all occupants)."
See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_ramming for more.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Nesterov
Gives August 25 1914 as the date.
I wonder if this could be that plane or another brought down by ramming. It certainly looks to have been wrecked, not just "captured."
Nesterov's brother was killed a few weeks later.
"August 26, 1914. Plane crash-Moran's solo, the pilot Captain Nesterov PN
In aerial combat, without any weapons at all, a reconnaissance plane rammed the enemy Albatross. The pilot on the ground in a hurry forgot to bind to a chair at the time of the collision of the plane fell and broke on impact with the ground 3.5 km west of d.Lipino near Dubna.
It was the first aerial ramming in the world.
October 8, 1914. Plane crash Moran, pilot Nesterov, MN
When a training flight lost speed and fell into a spin and collided with the ground near Gatchina, killing the pilot.
The pilot attempted to perform maneuvers similar to modern combat turn. Nesterov, MN - The younger brother of the famous Russian pilot Nesterov PN"
Googles' translation of entries from
76.163.106.187/index.php?PHPSESSID=cbb6d8fbc8 0ec756bbfc2c...
a Russian site about plane crashes.
swanq (13 months ago | reply)
@blor: It certainly looks like the White Ensign of Britain's Royal Navy to me. There was no Royal Air Force until April 1918. Before that the Army and Navy had their own flying units:
See, for example, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Naval_Air_Service
"The Royal Naval Air Service or RNAS was the air arm of the Royal Navy until near the end of the First World War, when it merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps to form a new service (the first of its kind in the world), the Royal Air Force. The RNAS came under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department."
But that does not explain why a photo captioned "Captured Russian Aeroplane" and apparently processed in Berlin (nearer the Eastern Front) would show a British flag!
mr thepete added this photo to his favorites. (13 months ago)
aquietlife~M added this photo to their favorites. (13 months ago)
aquietlife~M (13 months ago | reply)
Wow !
swanq (13 months ago | reply)
Back to the flag issue. I've found a Russian flag that looks a bit like this.
See www.vexillographia.ru/russia/index.htm
The Google translation about it is, "The Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow is stored as a flag of Military Operations Division Centrobalt - pre-revolutionary flag fleet commander with sewn on the bottom of the flag in red letters "SF RR" (Free Fleet of the Russian Republic)."
A Google image search yielded www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ru~xix.html which has the flag without the letters mentioned above. It is identified as "Flag of the fleet commander (1899-1917)"
Both these flags have a big blue diagonal cross which I don't see in the Bain photo. But that could be what represents the high rank (judging from other flags on the crwflags page).
That page points to another Russian page, www.navy.ru/symbols/anflag.htm , this one looking to be an official Russian Navy page. It includes flags which just have the top left quadrant with either a plain red or plain blue background. So I'm coming to the conclusion that the flag here is a Russian flag after all.
www.vexillographia.ru/russia/index.htm has a bunch of flags of this general form, with the same top left quadrant, a white background, and some additional symbol. I don't see a symbol that matches what I see in this picture, and these were apparently approved in 1916. But I'm even more convinced this is a Russian flag.
bior (13 months ago | reply)
Wow, good research. Yes, the flag in the photo does bear much more resemblance to the Russian division flags than to anything British. It would also make sense, considering the context of the photo.
The Ferret (13 months ago | reply)
Found it!
Russian Aeronautic Flag, 1894-1917
www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ru%5Eaf.html
You'll have to scroll down a bit, but you will see it, and if you compare to the photo, you can make out the winged anchor symbol on it. The airforce was originally a branch of the Imperial Russian Navy, hence the anchor
swanq (13 months ago | reply)
Well ferreted out!
BobMeade (13 months ago | reply)
Impressive research, thanks.
snap turtle (13 months ago | reply)
it is unlikely that this would be 1910 if it is a "captured" Russian airplane (by the Germans). The war did not start until 1914, and the two countries were at peace up until then.
The Ferret (13 months ago | reply)
The next question is... what was it? The engine, unless I'm mistaken, Gnome Monosoupe 9. No machine gun interrupt, you can see the the bolts holding on the deflector plates on the propeller.
snap turtle (13 months ago | reply)
The gnome engine of that period had an odd number of cylinders usually 5 7 or 9. This engine has 8 cylinders which makes it a virtual certainty that could only be one engine from that period (and this plane is actually German?). What is that white banner across the top of the photo?
The Ferret (13 months ago | reply)
Actually, all rotary engines had odd numbers, and if you look at the positioning of the cylinders, you will see that there is a cylinder behind the propeller. And by "banner", do you mean the white steak where it looks like tape was once attached to the photo, preventing the emulsion in that area from greying, like it otherwise has?
AMTER added this photo to his favorites. (13 months ago)
snap turtle (13 months ago | reply)
Yes. I was wondering "what's hidden behind the banner. With regard to engines- four stroke radials are always odd in cylinder count. But two stroke engines have even cylinder counts and are lighter (ie good for early aircraft) and simpler than four stroke engines. However I will recount the cylinders. I thought I was including the hidden ones, but perhaps not.
RunningTractor added this photo to their favorites. (13 months ago)
The Ferret (13 months ago | reply)
Rotary and single bank radial engines did not use counterbalancing cylinder action, and were all odd numbers, example, the 9 cylinder Wright R-1820, the engine used in the B-17 bomber and many other applications in WW2. To understand how a rotary engine is put together and works, Vintage Aviator has many pictures of their new Oberursel engine construction, which was a copy of the Le Rhone engine of the same period (thevintageaviator.co.nz/files/images/ur2-asse mbly/screens...). Notice how the crank has only a single offset, with all the cylinder rods attaching at the same point.
Temezhnikov Nick, ben_zajicek, and gskousen added this photo to their favorites.