In His Majesty’s Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World’s Largest Flying Machine, award-winning creator and historian S.C. Gwynne (Rebel Yell) delves into the little-known story behind the 1930 crash of a hydrogen-filled British airship referred to as R101.
R101 was the brainchild of Lord Christopher Birdwood Thomson, who held the reasonably inflated title of Secretary of State for Air. A baron and peer of the House of Lords, Thomson had been put in cost of the event of British dirigibles. On October 4, 1930, he ready to make a 5,000-mile journey from England to Karachi, India, in R101, which Gwynne describes as “a giant silver fish floating weightless in the slate-gray seas of the sky.”
At the time, R101 was one of the most important human-made objects on Earth, bigger by quantity than the Titanic. It’s an apt comparability, as a result of just like the ocean liner, the R101 was touted as the top of technological achievement, luxurious and security. Its press workplace boasted that the 777-foot-long hydrogen-filled R101 was “the safest aircraft of any kind ever built.”
Using hydrogen airships to fly lengthy distances and join England with its far-flung colonies was partly a response to the state of airplane journey on the time. Just three years beforehand, in 1927, a flight from England to India took 12 days and required 20 stops. An ocean liner may make the journey in two weeks. Thomson’s targets for the R101? Four days.
Gwynne intersperses the story of R101’s brief, tragic flight with the historical past of zeppelin airships extra typically, together with the use of airships as aerial bombers throughout World War I and the impression of the August 1921 crash of a British airship referred to as R38. Gwynne’s well-documented account additionally contains pictures of airships, in addition to of Thomson. The most fascinating half, of course, is following Lord Thomson as he ready for this doomed voyage, for which he introduced champagne, tons of ministry paperwork and even fancy carpets! R101 took off right into a creating extreme climate system, flying over London in opposition to a stiff wind whereas individuals rushed out onto the streets to see this unimaginable sight.
R101 has extra eerie similarities with the Titanic: It burst into flames shortly after 2 a.m., and newspapers all over the world carried information of the catastrophe. There had been solely six survivors (all crew members) out of 54 individuals on board, however the crash of R101 didn’t completely finish the period of experimentation with hydrogen airships. That would come later, within the aftermath of a crash much better identified right now: the Hindenburg.
Gwynne is a consummate storyteller, and his account of R101 is riveting and to not be missed.
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