What Did You Want to Have a Crash Like That For?

DESCRIPTION: "What did you want to have a crash like that for? It's the sixth you've had today. It makes you sad, it makes me mad, It's lucky it was an Avro, not a brand new Spad... And if you have another crash like that one, It's the LAST you'll have today"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 2001 (Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver)
KEYWORDS: technology warning crash disaster | airplane
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver, p. 113, "What Did You Want to Have a Crash Like That For?" (1 text, tune referenced)
ADDITIONAL: John Mullen, _The Show Must Go On! Popular Song in Britain during the First World War_, French edition 2012; English edition, Ashgate, 2015, pp. 205-206, "(What did you want to have a crash like that for)" (1 short text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For?" (tune)
NOTES [260 words]: Arthur's brief notes on this song say that the musical source, "What Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For," came from a 1916 revue "A Better 'Ole." The notes also mention that the Avro was a bomber and the Spad a fighter, but do not explain why the pilot was lucky to crash the former rather than the latter; a two-seater bomber would cost more than a fighter -- and although it wouldn't be as fast, it would be heavier, so I'd expect either to be about equally likely to be fatal upon crashing.
Looking up both aircraft in Stephen Pope and Elizabeth-Anne Wheal, Dictionary of the First World War, 1995 (I use the 2003 Pen & Sword paperback), gives a hint. Pages 448-449 describes a series of Spad fighters, which steadily improved. Thus there were always improved models coming out, and the Spad was presumably a desirable plane. And the British didn't have good fighters around 1916-1917, so there were British squadrons outfitted with Spads.
Pope/Wheal, pp. 52-53, describes the Avro 504, which was a two-seat light bomber which "was stable and easy to fly but displayed no more than average performance." It survived as a trainer, but as a bomber, it was obsolete by 1915, and the last combat squadrons gave up their Avros in 1916. Thus in 1916 the British were flying both Avros and Spads, but in that year they would know that the Avro was on its way out and would not mourn if one were knocked out of service. Though there is the problem that no squadron would have flown both Avros and Spads, since one was a bomber and the other a fighter. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: AWTBW113

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