Zeppelinheim

HMA R-100 was one half of the Imperial Airship Scheme. The brainchild of Christopher Thomson, the British Minister of Air, the Scheme, was a farsighted plan to connect the far flung colonies of the “empire on which the sun never set”, with regular, reliable, and expedient airship service. The first ship, R-100, the lesser known cousin of the infamous R-101, was chosen to fly a transatlantic route to Canada.                 The ship was the engineering brainchild of Barnes Wallis (later famous for WWII’s ‘bouncing bomb’ and his various designs for a supersonic airliner) and Nevil S. Norway (later acclaimed as the successful author Nevil Shute). The design and construction of R-100 represented a leap in airship design, going so far as to influence both the structure and passenger accommodations of Germany’s A.S. Hindenburg. R-100's superstructure was revolutionary. (Image courtesy 'Airship Heritage Trust')          ...

To facilitate a complete story of any airship that I feature I will no longer be using the label "Airship of the Month". Instead, I'll have a "Featured Airship" which allows me to take as long as I need on a particular airship E.G. with so much information on the Hindenburg It'd take more than one month to complete a full collection on it.) This will go into effect on April 1st with the Shenandoah as was originally planned for March. In the meantime, to make this post presentable, here are two of my all-time favorite airship photographs. The Hindenburg floats towards disaster at Lakehurst. Two hours later the ship would become one of the most famous air disasters of the 20th Century. The R-101 lit up inside her Cardington hangar.

EDIT: I'm posting this a day late due to a couple issues with it. I'm considering an "AirshipModeler Report" to summarize the goings on of AirshipModeler over the past week or month as the amount of activity dictates. The A.M. Report ~ Monday, January 21st. Today I am presenting a special version of the first ever A.M. Report.   January 4th, 2013 On January 4th the first thread since AirshipModeler was attacked by malware was posted by "Dirigible_Nut".  This thread can be found here:http://www.airshipmodeler.com/forums/showthread.php?1307-It-s-good-to-have-the-forum-back!! January 7th, 2013 "Hlostoops" (me) posted a thread about the upcoming test flight of "Aeroscraft". An ensuing discussion also provided insight into the technical definition of a rigid airship. http://www.airshipmodeler.com/forums/showthread.php?1309-Aeroscraft-takes-off! January 15th, 2013 Dirigible_Nut" continued work on his model of the R-34: htt...

Before and during the successful Canada trip the R-100's sister ship, the R-101, was undergoing modifications at the insistence of the Scheme's designer Lord Thomson. The technical reason for this overhaul was because, without another gas bay, the planned counterpart to the R-100's flight across the Atlantic, a flight to Karachi, then part of India, could not take place. However, there were darker reasons behind the extension. The R-101 was pushed to service to fulfill the political ambition of Thomson who - as an international politician and a good friend of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain - saw himself as the ideal candidate to be the next Viceroy of India. The flight of the R-101 would have been a spectacular publicity coup not only by bringing technology to what was thought to be a backwards nation, but by also giving Lord Thomson plenty of camera time in the newsreel speeches he was expected to give. The ship departed the mast at Cardington with extra me...

Large passenger airships, despite their ignomius fall from favor, had started promisingly. Despite the common image of the Hindenburg single handedly causing the demise of big rigids, their type of transportation had been delicately balanced between failure and success ever since the British R101 first flew in 1929. Going back several years to 1925, Lord Thomson, the British Minister of Air, proposed the Imperial Airship Scheme, a plan to connect the far flung colonies of the “empire on which the sun never set”, with regular, reliable, and expedient airship service. Accordingly, facilities were built in St. Hubert’s Canada, and Karachi, India, with a planned site in Australia being considered. The plan was both farsighted and brilliant, perhaps too much for its own good. Two experimental ships were ordered to serve as a large test as to whether the Scheme was feasible. The first ship, the R-100, was to be built by private companies and was quickly named “The Capitalist Ship...

Quick note: The essay will be posted in 9-10 parts about every other day.  One by one the windows were opened and the people arose from softly upholstered orange chairs. A man showed his three children how far they had come from Frankfurt to New York on the skillfully painted pastel mural of the world on the far side of the lounge. Then, the dirty tops of skyscrapers, one rising above the rest, appeared from out of the clouds. The passengers waved to the visitors of the great building, then pointed towards the parks, the tall statue jutting out of the glimmering harbor, and, below them to the sleek Queen Mary, her three red and black funnels sparkling, pulling into her Cunard pier, before returning to their seats. 

    The R-100... faired much better [than the R-101] even though it was further from the public eye. The ship was designed to fly on the Transat route and, on July the 29 th,  1930; it departed for the mooring mast in St. Hubert with a full contingent of reporters. The flight was as well received as it was stunning: Before departing back to Cardington, the passengers had breakfast in an ornate and distinctly British atmosphere over Niagara Falls, lunch was served over Toronto, and dinner above the white caps of the Atlantic. The ship arrived safely at Cardington twenty-two days later. It would never fly again. ~ excerpt from my essay "A Fallen Dream: The end of commercial airships". The full essay will be up on the blog within a few days to a week. R-100 Main Lounge publicity photo (Courtesy of A.H.T.) R-100 promenade windows (Courtesy of A.H.T.) Hendrick Stoops

 Did you know: The R-100 was very likely earmarked for the name "Pollux". More commonly known as Hercules, Pollux was one of the two Aurgonauts to travel with Jason in search of the Golden Fleece; The other, Castor or Apollo, would have been the name of the R-101. R-101 over Toronto Hendrick Stoops