Originally Posted by
Whenurhappy
This might sound a bit macabre, but what is the diameter of the bullet? From what I can see in the photo, it looks quite large - possibly 600/1000" Minie-style round used by rifled muskets and early breachloaders such as the Snider Enfield .577 or similar sized Martini-Enfields (both which were abundance in that region in that time)
If so, it means that Sir John Slessor was hit by a black powder musket round whilst flying a then state of the art aircraft! That would be a rare, possibly unique, event, akin to, say, a Typhoon pilot being taken out by a single SLR round.
I last saw the bullet about 5 years ago and, from memory, it was around .5 inch diameter. Sir John was bombing a fairly large force of Darfur soldiers and was flying low enough to recognise their leader and blow him and his camel to bits. Actually, it turned out that it wasn’t the leader but Sir John must have been pretty low and I imagine that large numbers of troops were firing at him, so it is not surprising that at least one round hit the aircraft. The bullet was recovered from Sir John’s thigh, which probably indicates a poor propellant like black powder.