A sticky encounter. Cockburn encounters Schtenkentopf over the dome of Flinders Street

Dear reader, we regret to announce that the editorial department, which includes, Simpkins, Tompkins, and Dodson have all resigned, They cite idiocy in the “real world” and being “Fed Up” with keeping pace with the P.M for ‘Innovation, thought bubbles and Ideas” Malcolm Turnbull. We desperately tried inspiration, “Look at the splendid things Donald is doing in the U.S‘ and they just responded very dryly, “Frydenburg“. Indeed we were flumoxed, So desperate to reassert some fragment of interest we have delved deep into the annals to find some episodes of derring do that really made Australia Great!!  And just a reminder the episodes we describe here as vetted by Malcolm Roberts of the seventy votes’, ‘Are all True’

Flurry over Flinders Street. 15 dec 1916.

A true scene in which a Point Cook Royal Aircraft Factory Fe2 was intercepted by an Albatross Dv 11 and wiped from the skies. In this engagement the pilot of the Fe2, Flight lieutenant W. C. Cockburn, held his nerve until the german plane, piloted by unteroffizier Reinhard Schtenkentopf, was within touching distance, before delivering a short paced bouncer to his observer gunner, P.T Plimsole. Pluckily Plimsole defected the ball in a perfect hook shot to send the ball spinning directly into the goggles of Unt-O Schtenkentopf. The German pilot, temporarily blinded by the collision between Ball and Goggle, briefly lost control and as the plane stalled the plucky australian, seizing the initiative took cover behind the vast dome of Finders street railway station where he was able to plan his escape.

Schtenketopf, scourge of the sweet factory.

Soon thereafter the tenacious german spotted the Fe2 whilst performing an Immelmann, (to dislodge the cricket ball) over the then, incomplete spire of St Paul’s Cathedral and watched in some satisfaction as the Fe2, losing control, plunged into the Allen’s Confectionary factory.

Apparently the cricket ball, bouncing off the shattered goggles of the german pilot, glanced against the albatross propellor, (which was made of the finest Pomeranian Willow), and travelling in a perfect parabolic arc, it then, descending at almost the speed of sound, by pure chance, hit the australian pilot / batsmen as he sought cover. The first ever incidence of an aerial cricket fatality, and a precursor to the fully enclosed full cockpit mesh canopy protector. With typical sanguine irony the german returned to his squadron and remarked in his log, ‘The, (spelt as ‘ZE’) Australian tried his hand at cricket, to which I was temporarily blinded, perplexed, and rendered lifeless, before I regained my composure and then with a lofted delivery achieved contact with my adversary to which he subsequently then smashed into Allan’s Factory. A sweet victory’.