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R101
R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry–appointed team and was effectively in competition with the government-funded but privately designed and built R100. When built, it was the world's largest flying craft at in length, and it was not surpassed by another hydrogen-filled rigid airship until the LZ 129 ''Hindenburg'' was launched seven years later. After trial flights and subsequent modifications to increase lifting capacity, which included lengthening the ship by to add another gasbag,"R101".
Airship Heritage Trust via Airshipsonline.com. Retrieved: 23 July 2008.
the R101 crashed in France during its maiden overseas voy ...
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R100
His Majesty's Airship R100 was a privately designed and built British rigid airship made as part of a two-ship competition to develop a commercial airship service for use on British Empire routes as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. The other airship, the R101, was built by the British Air Ministry, but both airships were funded by the Government. R100 was built by the Airship Guarantee Company, a specially created subsidiary of the armaments firm Vickers-Armstrongs, led by Commander Dennis Burney. The design team was headed by Barnes Wallis, later famous for his invention of the bouncing bomb. The design team also included Nevil Shute Norway as the senior stress engineer (see his '' Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer''). R100 first flew in December 1929. It made a series of trial flights and a successful return crossing of the Atlantic in July–August 1930, but following the crash of R101 in October 1930 the Imperial Airship Scheme was terminated and R100 was bro ...
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Mooring Mast
A mooring mast, or mooring tower, is a structure designed to allow for the docking of an airship outside of an airship hangar or similar structure. More specifically, a mooring mast is a mast or tower that contains a fitting on its top that allows for the bow of the airship to attach its mooring line to the structure. When it is not necessary or convenient to put an airship into its hangar (or shed) between flights, airships can be moored on the surface of land or water, in the air to one or more wires, or to a mooring mast. After their development mooring masts became the standard approach to mooring airships as considerable manhandling was avoided.Williams, T, 2009 (Reissue), "Airship Pilot No. 28", Darcy Press, UK, Mast types Airship mooring masts can be broadly divided into fixed high masts and fixed or mobile low (or ‘stub’) masts. In the 1920s and 1930s masts were built in many countries. At least two were mounted on ships. Without doubt the tallest mooring mast ...
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Rigid Airship
A rigid airship is a type of airship (or dirigible) in which the envelope is supported by an internal framework rather than by being kept in shape by the pressure of the lifting gas within the envelope, as in blimps (also called pressure airships) and semi-rigid airships. Rigid airships are often commonly called Zeppelins, though this technically refers only to airships built by the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin company. In 1900, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin successfully performed the maiden flight of his first airship; further models quickly followed. Prior to the First World War, Germany was a world leader in the field, largely attributable to the work of von Zeppelin and his Luftschiffbau Zeppelin company. During the conflict, rigid airships were tasked with various military duties, which included their participation in Germany's strategic bombing campaign. Numerous rigid airships were produced and employed with relative commercial success between the 1900s and the late 1930s. The ...
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Royal Airship Works
Cardington Airfield, previously RAF Cardington, is a former Royal Air Force Royal Air Force station, station in Bedfordshire, England, with a long and varied history, particularly in relation to airships and balloons. Most of the former RAF station is in the parish of Eastcotts, as is the settlement of Shortstown. History Birth under the Short brothers The site started life as a private venture when aircraft manufacturing company Short Brothers bought land there to build airships for the British Admiralty, Admiralty. It constructed a Airship hangar (the No. 1 Shed) in 1915 to enable it to build two rigid airships, the R31 (airship), R-31 and the R32 (airship), R-32. Short also built a housing estate, opposite the site, which it named Shortstown. Royal Airship Works The airships site was nationalised in April 1919, becoming known as the Royal Airship Works. In preparation for the R101 project, the No. 1 shed was extended between October 1924 and March 1926; its roof ...
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LZ 129 Hindenburg
LZ 129 ''Hindenburg'' (; Registration: D-LZ 129) was a German commercial passenger-carrying rigid airship, the lead ship of the ''Hindenburg'' class, the longest class of flying machine and the largest airship by envelope volume. It was designed and built by the Zeppelin Company ( ''Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH'') on the shores of Lake Constance in Friedrichshafen, Germany, and was operated by the German Zeppelin Airline Company (''Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei''). It was named after Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, who was President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934. The airship flew from March 1936 until it was destroyed by fire 14 months later on May 6, 1937, while attempting to land at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey, at the end of the first North American transatlantic journey of its second season of service. This was the last of the great airship disasters; it was preceded by the crashes of the British R38, the US airship ''Roma ...
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Christopher Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson
Christopher Birdwood Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson, (13 April 1875 – 5 October 1930) was a British Army officer who went on to serve as a Labour minister and peer. He served as Secretary of State for Air under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and between 1929 and 1930, when he was killed in the R101 disaster. Early life Born in Nasik (now Nashik) in the Bombay Presidency of India to a military family, Thomson attended Cheltenham College. His father was Major-General David Thompson, Royal Engineers, and his mother was the daughter of Major-General Christopher Birdwood; William Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood was another grandson of Major-General Birdwood. Career Military After graduating from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1894, Thomson was commissioned into the Royal Engineers. He served first in Mauritius and then saw action during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) during which he was in command of a field company section and was mentioned in dispatches. He also ...
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Airship
An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early dirigibles, the lifting gas used was hydrogen, due to its high lifting capacity and ready availability. Helium gas has almost the same lifting capacity and is not flammable, unlike hydrogen, but is rare and relatively expensive. Significant amounts were first discovered in the United States and for a while helium was only available for airships in that country. Most airships built since the 1960s have used helium, though some have used hot air.A few airships after World War II used hydrogen. The first British airship to use helium was the ''Chitty Bang Bang'' of 1967. The envelope of an airship may form the gasbag, or it may contain a number of gas-filled cells. An airship also has engines, crew, and optionally also payload accommodation ...
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Cardington, Bedfordshire
Cardington is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Bedford in Bedfordshire, England. Part of the ancient hundred of Wixamtree, the settlement is best known in connection with the Cardington airship works founded by Short Brothers during World War I, which later became an RAF training station. However most of the former RAF station is actually in the parish of Eastcotts, as is the settlement of Shortstown, which was originally built by Short Brothers for its workers. The village of Cardington is located to the north east of Shortstown and the RAF station, and houses most of the population of the parish, which was 270 in 2005, making it one of the least populated parishes in Bedfordshire. Sites of interest The Church of St Mary the Virgin has pieces dating from the 12th century, although the church itself was mostly rebuilt between 1898 and 1902. It is a Grade II listed building. Airships, barrage balloons and RAF Cardington Cardington became one of the major Briti ...
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Vickers Limited
Vickers Limited was a British engineering conglomerate. The business began in Sheffield in 1828 as a steel foundry and became known for its church bells, going on to make shafts and propellers for ships, armour plate and then artillery. Entire large ships, cars, tanks and torpedoes followed. Airships and aircraft were added, and Vickers jet airliners were to remain in production until 1965. Financial problems following the death of the Vickers brothers were resolved in 1927 by separating Metropolitan Carriage Wagon and Finance Company and Metropolitan-Vickers, then merging the remaining bulk of the original business with Armstrong Whitworth to form Vickers-Armstrongs. The Vickers name resurfaced as Vickers plc between 1977 and 1999. History Foundry Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor & Sanderson, and Vickers' brother William owned a steel roll ...
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Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the Secretary of State for Air. Organisations before the Air Ministry The Air Committee On 13 April 1912, less than two weeks after the creation of the Royal Flying Corps (which initially consisted of both a naval and a military wing), an Air Committee was established to act as an intermediary between the Admiralty and the War Office in matters relating to aviation. The new Air Committee was composed of representatives of the two war ministries, and although it could make recommendations, it lacked executive authority. The recommendations of the Air Committee had to be ratified by the Admiralty Board and the Imperial General Staff and, in consequence, the Committee was not particularly effective. The increasing separation of army and naval aviation from 191 ...
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List Of Airship Accidents
The following is a partial list of airship accidents. It should be stated that rigid airships operate differently than blimps which have no rigid structure. See also * List of ballooning accidents References {{DEFAULTSORT:List of Airship Accidents *Airships Airship Accidents Airships An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air Powered aircraft, under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding a ...
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Dixmude (airship)
The ''Dixmude'' was a Zeppelin airship built for the Imperial German Navy as L 72 (c/n ''LZ 114'') and unfinished at the end of the First World War, when it was given to France as war reparations and recommissioned in French Navy service and renamed ''Dixmude''. It was lost when it exploded in mid-air on 21 December 1923 off the coast of Sicily, killing all 52 (42 crew and ten passengers) on board. This was one of the first of the great airship disasters, preceded by the crash of the British ''R38'' in 1921 (44 dead) and the US airship ''Roma'' in 1922 (34 dead), and followed by the destruction of the USS ''Shenandoah'' in 1925 (14 dead) the British ''R101'' in 1930 (48 dead), the USS ''Akron'' in 1933 (73 dead) and the German ''Hindenburg'' in 1937 (36 dead). Name The ship was named after the Belgian city of Diksmuide (French: ''Dixmude''), and specifically, in honour of the Fusiliers Marins at the battle of Diksmuide. It was the first of three ships named ''Dixmude''. H ...
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