---
title: Hydraulics - Safety First (Air Diagram 1298)
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/hydraulics-safety-first-air-diagram-1298-1940/
description: Two panels of captioned drawings show a bomber whose crew test the flaps at a safe height and land, against a careless pilot who lowers them untested.
section: Collection
---

1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/)
2. [Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)
3. Hydraulics - Safety First (Air Diagram 1298)

[![Hydraulics - Safety First, 1940 UK poster: Two panels of captioned drawings show a bomber whose crew test the flaps at a safe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hydraulics-safety-first-air-diagram-1298-1940.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/hydraulics-safety-first-air-diagram-1298-1940.jpg)

# Hydraulics - Safety First (Air Diagram 1298)

Two panels of captioned drawings show a bomber whose crew test the flaps at a safe height and land, against a careless pilot who lowers them untested, loses control and crashes. The fear-appeal tell is the crash drawn as the consequence of skipping the check; the text itself is plain technical instruction.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
HYDRAULICS - SAFETY FIRST

Whenever you have been in contact with the enemy, damage may have been caused to your aircraft, even though you may not know it. If your hydraulics have been damaged one flap only may come down causing you to lose control. Test this out at a safe height before you approach to land.

1. PILOT RETURNING FROM MISSION TESTS HYDRAULICS AT A SAFE HEIGHT.
2. ONLY PORT FLAP COMES DOWN. AIRCRAFT BEGINS TO YAW VIOLENTLY.
3. PILOT RAISES FLAP AGAIN AND PROCEEDS TO LAND WITHOUT THEM.

1. CAREFUL PILOT LOWERS FLAPS WITHOUT TESTING THEM PREVIOUSLY.
2. PORT SIDE FLAP ONLY COMES DOWN. PILOT HAS NO TIME TO RAISE IT AND AIRCRAFT CRASHES.

AIR DIAGRAM 1298 3/40
PRINTED FOR H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE BY LOWE & BRYDONE PRINTERS LTD., LONDON, N.W.10 51-6266
[signature:] LESLIE CARR
```

[← Они так веселы потому что вырвались к счастливой жизни (They Are So Cheerful Because They Broke Free to a Happy Life): Finnish leaflet for Red Army soldiers](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/finnish-leaflet-pows-content-1940/) [秘密戰ヲ防ゲ (Guard Against Secret Warfare), Japanese home-front counterintelligence poster →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japan-counterintelligence-poster-1940/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)