---
title: Pride Goes Before a Fall
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-pride-goes-before-a-fall-air-diagram-1344-1940/
description: A four-panel grey drawing shows a pilot low-flying over a village to impress a friend in a house, then a newspaper headline 'Local R.A.F. pilot killed
section: Collection
---

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3. Pride Goes Before a Fall

[![Pride Goes Before a Fall, 1940 UK poster: A four-panel grey drawing shows a pilot low-flying over a village to impress](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-pride-goes-before-a-fall-air-diagram-1344-1940.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-pride-goes-before-a-fall-air-diagram-1344-1940.jpg)

# Pride Goes Before a Fall

A four-panel grey drawing shows a pilot low-flying over a village to impress a friend in a house, then a newspaper headline 'Local R.A.F. pilot killed in low flying stunt', a crashed aircraft by the house, and a wrecked gun and vehicle with the line 'It is a pity he did not reserve his low flying efforts for a greater and proper occasion'. The tell is the staged fatal outcome used as the reason not to show off (fear appeal); the sheet is chiefly a training warning.

## 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

```
This Pilot is "Showing Off"-Not so much to those in The Village, as those in a particular house.

In fact to a particular friend in that house.

[newspaper:] ...e News  LATE EDITION  ...V. 1940
LOCAL R.A.F. PILOT KILLED IN LOW FLYING STUNT
ACCIDENT NEAR HOME
It is to be regretted that the toll of ...

And only too often this is the tragic result of his escapade

It is a pity he did not reserve his low flying efforts for a greater and proper occasion.

PRIDE GOES BEFORE A FALL

Drawing by THE AEROPLANE
LESLIE CARR
For Official Use Only.
Air Diagram No. 1344.
```

[← "Never Was So Much Owed by So Many to So Few" (The Prime Minister)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-never-was-so-much-owed-to-so-few-1940/) [Safety Height for Bombing (Air Diagram No. 1295) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-safety-height-for-bombing-1940/)

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- [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.
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