Albatros engine exchange at a Marine-Feldjagdstaffel (MFJ)

[Olham]

Found this picture in a website Carrick has posted today over at SimHQ.

 

 

 

[Hasse Wind]

Ah, sailors without shirts.

 

Another fine pic. You don't see these too often.

[Olham]

Yes, such pics are rather rare.

What asthonished me was to see, how they have just nailed a few rather thin beams

together to form a "crane" for the engine - great improvising those days.

[Hasse Wind]

Well, aviation was such a new thing that they had to improvise a lot. Nobody was truly prepared to fight the air war when the Great War began in 1914.

 

It's that pioneering spirit that so fascinates me about WW1 aviation.

[Rugbyfan1972]

Olham,

 

In the early 1900 there would have probably been someone who was a carpenter in civilian life, and as such had an understanding of how to fit wooden poles/beams together to get the strongest structure.

 

Also the engine was probably relatively light compared to later aircraft engines (late 1920's and onwards).

 

I am speaking with some knowledge here as my dad's apprenticeship was as a master cabinet maker and he is able to look at a piece of wood and instinctively know where its strongest and weakest points are and how to cut it to retain the most strength.

 

Also the way that the frame is braced looks structurally strong to my fairly untrained eye.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Rugbyfan1972