R101
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The R101 Airship was a newly-built British airship that crashed on October 5, 1930 in France with 48 casualties. It was one of the airship disasters, along with the Hindenberg disaster that coloured public opinion of lighter-than-air craft.
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History
The creation of the R101 was the result of a competition between the private company of Vickers and the British Government's Air Ministry. Vickers was to produce the R100 airship and the Air Ministry, the R101. Among the engineers working for Vickers were the designer Barnes Wallis, later to become famous for the bouncing bomb and, as chief calculator, Nevil Shute Norway, who would find fame in the future as an author and who later wrote about the case.
The building of the R101 began in 1926 at the Royal Airship Works at Cardington near Bedford, England. Due to a failed attempt to create hydrogen-using engines and several other new design concepts, the project's completion was delayed from 1927 to 1929. The R101 was meant to have a useful lift of 60 tons but ended up with only 35 t. It had two decks and a dining room for 60 people and it was fitted with heavy diesel engines. The gas bag valves may have also been defective, leaking gas and leading to the continual decrease of lift in flight.
The stability of the R101 was doubtful, due to the insufficient span of its fins into the airstream. During its flight at the Hendon air show in 1930, it almost plunged to the ground and kept falling into a dive during the return flight. Its gas bags also developed numerous leaks. Despite this, it was given a Certificate of Airworthiness. Engineers lengthened the frame, adding another gas bag, reversing propellers and replaced the outer cover. After that, the ship was 777 ft (237 m) long with a total volume of 5.5 million cubic feet (156,000 m³) and an effective lift of just under 50 t.
At completion she was the largest flying craft ever built. The Hindenburg would later top her length at 804 ft (245 metres).
The Air Ministry pressured the engineers to finish the project. The final trial flight of the R101 was originally scheduled for September 26, 1930 but an unfavourable wind delayed it until October 1. It returned to Cardington after a flight of 17 hours.
The R101 departed on October 4 at 6:24 pm for its intended destination in India via a refuelling stop at Ismalia in Egypt under the command of Flight Lieutenant Carmichael Irvin. Passengers included Lord Christopher Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, and Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation. It had to drop 5 tons of water ballast to lift off.
Over France the R101 encountered gusting wind and crashed into a hillside near Beauvais, north of Paris, then catching fire. Forty six of the 54 passengers and crew were killed. Two men who survived the crash died later in a hospital bringing the total to 48 dead. According to survivors, the top layers of the outer cover and some of the forward gas bags had been torn in the wind causing a loss of the flammable hydrogen lifting gas. On impact an engine had impacted the gas bags igniting the gas.
The wreck remained into 1931. Scrap contractors salvaged what they could. The Zeppelin Company purchased 5 t of duraluminum from the wreckage.
The R101 spelled the end of the British attempt to create lighter-than-air aircraft. Its competitor, the R100, despite a more successful development program, and a safe transatlantic trial flight, was mothballed immediately after the R101's crash and sold for scrap in 1931.
Notes
The Doctor Who audio play Storm Warning is set aboard the R101 during its final voyage.
See also
External links
Airship Heritage Trust (http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk)
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