page_title: Francis Cubbon
section_title: Service in Royal Flying Corps
hierarchical_section_title: Francis Cubbon / Service in Royal Flying Corps
caption_attribution_description: Español: Ametralladoras Lewis montadas en un avión británico F.E.2d
context_page_description: Captain Francis Richard Cubbon MC* was an aerial observer and flying ace in the First World War. In conjunction with his pilots, he was credited with 21 aerial victories.
context_section_description: Like so many invalided and convalescent land soldiers of the First World War, Cubbon volunteered for flight duty and was accepted as an observer on 25 March 1917. By Bloody April, 1917, he was assigned to 20 Squadron as an observer in Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2s. Frederick Libby, the United States of America's first ace, gave a vivid description of an observer's duties aboard the aircraft that was an incremental development of the pre-1914 Farman Experimental:
  When you stood up to shoot, all of you from the knees up was exposed to the elements. There was no belt to hold you. Only your grip on the gun and the sides of the nacelle stood between you and eternity. Toward the front of the nacelle was a hollow steel rod with a swivel mount to which the gun was anchored. This gun covered a huge field of fire forward. Between the observer and the pilot a second gun was mounted, for firing over the F.E.2d's upper wing to protect the aircraft from rear attack ... Adjusting and shooting this gun required that you stand right up out of the nacelle with your feet on the nacelle coaming. You had nothing to worry about except being blown out of the aircraft by the blast of air or tossed out bodily if the pilot made a wrong move. There were no parachutes and no belts. No wonder they needed observers.
  And Libby did not even mention the hazards of spilling overboard with a propeller chopping along behind the crew.
  Cubbon scored two victories on 24 April 1917 with Lieutenant R. E. Johnson in F.E.2 number A6392. He then flew with Captain Frederick Thayre for the next six weeks and claimed some nineteen victories.
  Seventeen of these were over German Albatros D.III single-seated fighters. Upon Captain Albert Ball's death on 7 May, Cubbon became the second ranking ace of the Royal Flying Corps.
caption: An F.E.2d observer demonstrating the use of the rear-firing Lewis gun, which required him to stand on his seat.
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