Oberleutnant Frank Linke-Crawford (18 August 1893 – 30 July 1918),[1] was the fourth-ranking ace of the Austro-Hungarian Air Force during World War I, with 27 victories.

Linke-Crawford attended school in Meran, Tyrol and Hranice (Weißkirchen), Moravia before in 1910 he entered the Theresian Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt.

[3] In 1915, Linke-Crawford's fascination with the Luftfahrtruppen (Austro-Hungarian air service) led him to request a transfer for pilot training.

[6] Upon his completion of observer training at Wiener-Neustadt in March 1916, Linke-Crawford was posted to Fliegerkompanie 22 to fly reconnaissance and bombing missions in two seater airplanes.

On one of his long-range reconnaissance missions, he was attacked by an Italian SPAD, which riddled his Hansa-Brandenburg C.I with 68 bullet holes over a half-hour period.

[7] On 2 August 1917, while flying his Aviatik C.I with no rear gunner aboard to man the craft's single machine gun, he was shot down as Pier Piccio's eighth victim, but was uninjured.

Flik 41 was Austro-Hungary's most renowned air unit; it was commanded by the empire's top ace, Godwin von Brumowski.

[1] The Hansa-Brandenburg D.I had serious liabilities as a fighter plane; it spun easily, had poor forward visibility, and its machine gun was mounted well above the pilot's head on the top wing to fire above the propeller arc.

[10] Linke-Crawford's switch to flying an Albatros D.III mounted him in a fighter that not only offered him better field of vision, especially downward, but also armed him with twin Spandau machine guns in front of him that were synchronized to fire through his propeller.

[13] Beginning on 10 May, Linke-Crawford switched to an Aviatik (Berg) D.I (115.32) At least five of his seven victories in this machine were over superior aircraft, such as the Sopwith Camel and Bristol F.2 Fighters.

[14] Given that the Aviatik was the first fighter manufactured entirely in Austria, and that it initially had a reputation for wing failures during violent aerial maneuvers, there was suspicion that Linke-Crawford had fallen afoul of a faulty airplane rather than an Italian pilot.

[14][15] While the original Aviatik D-I design by Julius von Berg was sound, the Series 115 aircraft license-produced by the Lohner firm at Wien-Floridsdorf were notorious for failures along the wing trailing edges in high speed maneuvers, as Lohner had deviated from Aviatik specifications by employing thinner, lighter wing ribs.

"[1] Although Frank Linke-Crawford was originally buried at Pobrežje Cemetery in Maribor (now Slovenia) after the war, in 1919, he was reinterred in Salzburg.