Cranky, ‘homemade’ aircraft are a longtime staple of children’s illustration, but we mustn’t forget they would’ve seemed very different to readers in the early decades of heavier-than air flight in the early Twentieth Century – rather as we would look at homemade Mars Rovers or the like today.

Here’s a somewhat eerie illustration by Austrian artist Franz Wacik (1883-1938) from the Golden Age of Illustration Facebook page here. There’s a lot going on in the picture, but outstanding is the startled cherubic pilot in his rachety monoplane colliding with a pleased looking tree. To me, unfamiliar with his remarkable work, there’s great elements of W. Heath Robinson and Arthur Rackham.

And getting ‘caught’ by a tree did happen – a lot, when aircraft were lighter, slower, less reliable and likely to try and get around trees into an airfield…

BNPS.co.uk (01202 558833) Pic: C&TAuctions/BNPS Epic fail… Those not so magnificent men in their flying machines… A newly discovered album of of photographs from the First War illustrates the difficulties and dangers of the earliest days of flight. Thought to have been collected by an unknown officer at the RNAS school of flying at Cranwell during the war, the album catalogues the thrills and spills of a time before health and safety. Multiple collisions, perilous carrier take off’s, impacts with phone lines, random trees and even buildings are all featured – as well as a visit from the King and Queen. C&T auctions are selling the unique album on Wednesday 30th March.

Franz Wacik’s translated German biography here.