Below is a photo of my grandfather. The photo has a note on the back "A snap on landing after reconnoitre (notice wing and fuselage)" and (by my mother) "H D Hobbes - Father - July 21st 1918.
We thought he was an observer so don't know quite what he is doing posing in what seems to be a single seat aircraft. We also have a postcard addressed to him as follows.
ac (1-284104) Hobbes HD
23 Balloon Section
Cognelee
Belgium
We would be grateful for any info about the aircraft and what his role may have been.
Click to view attachment

German LVG C.VI

BR

Piotr

Or possibly an LVG C V - the radiator on the top wing in general a distinguishing mark of the LVG VI isn't visible. Either way a German two seater (he is blocking the view of the pilots cockpit). Presumably a captured aircraft.

Obviously the remarks on the photo are to draw attention to the damage to the wing and fuselage fabric, but there does seem to be a roundel painted on it, just visible in the bottom corner. There is no evidence of machine guns, either. If it was a capture, then I would only assume they would paint roundels on it if it was in flying condition and this clearly isn't. So either it is being repaired for flight testing or someone attacked it after capture.

The pilot's fixed gun would not be visible in this view. It was normal practice to dismount the observers gun after landing. I have never seen any account of captured German aircraft being used operationally by the British. Can you think of anyway a German LVG would be acquired by the RFC other than capture?.

Thanks folks. This is intrigueing. Do you think it possible the damage was sustained on the last flight as indicated by the comment on the back or is he 'shooting a line'. The roundel indicates they must have been flying the machine at some time.

Or that they were intending to do so. Its possible/probable that the damage was incurred when the aircraft was forced down behind the British lines and it was intended to patch up the damage and fly it back to Britain for evaluation.

If anyone has any example of German aircraft being flown in combat by a British crew. please speak up.

In various personal accounts of the air war over the Western Front i've seen mention to persons of one nationality using an aircraft of enemy nationality for balloon strafing - although without spending a lot of time pouring through them I can't say whether anyone flying for the RFC/RNAS/RAF did this

I'd have thought the paint job would come after the repair.

There have been suggestions that the Germans did this but nothing that can be said to be absolute proof.

Here's another photo of an LVG CVI with roundels.

There would have been a number of LVG CV and CVIs with roundels (for example the one at Old Warden wore them once) but again no evidence of any of them being used on operations