HMA ''No. 9r'' was a
rigid airship
A rigid airship is a type of airship (or dirigible) in which the Aerostat, 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 pres ...
designed and built by
Vickers
Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public i ...
at
Walney Island
Walney Island, also known as the Isle of Walney, is an island off the west coast of England, at the western end of Morecambe Bay in the Irish Sea. It is part of Barrow-in-Furness, separated from the mainland by Walney Channel, which is spanned b ...
just off
Barrow-in-Furness
Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of B ...
,
Cumbria
Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...
. It was ordered in 1913 but did not fly until 27 November 1916 when it became the first British rigid airship to do so. It was dismantled in June 1918 after being flown for around 165 hours, mainly for experimental purposes.
Background
Plans to build a second rigid airship to follow the unsuccessful
HMA No. 1
His Majesty's Airship No. 1 was designed and built by Vickers, Sons and Maxim at their works in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, England, as an aerial scout airship for the Royal Navy. It was the first British rigid airship to be built, and ...
(His Majesty's Airship No. 1) ''Mayfly'' were agreed by the
Committee for Imperial Defence
The Committee of Imperial Defence was an important ''ad hoc'' part of the Government of the United Kingdom and the British Empire from just after the Second Boer War until the start of the Second World War. It was responsible for research, and som ...
in early 1913, and that Vickers should be asked to design an improved class of ship incorporating all that was then known about the
Zeppelins
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp ...
.
[ Vickers' airship design department had been disbanded following the failure of the ''Mayfly'', consequently a new department was formed when the original design team was reassembled with H. B. Pratt recruited as chief designer. Pratt had been working at Vickers while the ''Mayfly'' was being constructed and had predicted that it was not structurally sound and subsequently left the company. Pratt in turn hired Barnes Wallis, whom he had met while both were working for the shipbuilding firm of ]J. Samuel White
J. Samuel White was a British shipbuilding firm based in Cowes, taking its name from John Samuel White (1838–1915).
It came to prominence during the Victorian era. During the 20th century it built destroyers and other naval craft for both the ...
, as his assistant.
The initial order for the new ship was placed on 10 June 1913, with the final plans being agreed at the end of the year, and a formal contract was signed in March 1914.
Design
The initial specification called for an airship with a disposable lift of 5 tons (5080 kg) capable of flying at and maintaining an altitude of for 30 minutes; however, the required load was later reduced to 3.1 tons (3150 kg).[Higham 1961 p. 130] The hull was cylindrical for most of its length and was constructed from 17-sided transverse frames with a triangular section keel underneath. Two gondolas
The gondola (, ; vec, góndoła ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hul ...
were suspended from the keel, the forward one containing the control compartment and two of the engines, the aft containing an emergency control station and the remaining pair of engines. In addition there was a radio cabin and a mess space for the crew within the keel structure, which also contained the fuel and ballast tanks. Propulsion was provided by four Wolseley engines, mounted in pairs in the gondolas. Like ''Mayfly'', it was designed with watertight cars so that it could be operated from water. The design was based in part on French plans of the German craft Z IV which had landed in France on 3 April 1913 following an accidental incursion into French airspace, permitting a thorough examination.
Construction was delayed by a number of circumstances. Difficulties were encountered with the fabrication of the duralumin girders for the transverse frames, and there were many changes to the design, including strengthening the hull so that it could be handled safely by inexperienced crews, and replacing the original drive arrangement of paired propellers mounted on the sides of the hull with swivelling propellers mounted on the gondolas (as used on contemporary British Army dirigibles).[
]
Construction
The construction shed at the Cavendish Dock at Barrow was too small for the new design so a new hangar
A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...
was built at Walney Island
Walney Island, also known as the Isle of Walney, is an island off the west coast of England, at the western end of Morecambe Bay in the Irish Sea. It is part of Barrow-in-Furness, separated from the mainland by Walney Channel, which is spanned b ...
, off the west of Barrow. The new shed was long, wide and high, and had a -thick concrete floor with handling rails embedded into it which extended into the adjacent field. As a safety measure the shed had eight fire extinguishing jets fed by a dedicated reservoir. A gasbag factory employing 100 staff was also set up beside the shed.[Higham 1961, p. 126]
When World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
broke out on 4 August 1914 No.9r was nearly ready for erection, and despite competing demands for materials and manpower for other projects, construction continued during the first months of the war. However, there was a feeling that the project was no longer favoured by the Admiralty: Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
, then First Lord of the Admiralty
The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...
was known to be unenthusiastic about airships,[ and on 12 March 1915 he cancelled the order for the ship. The reasons given for this decision were that it was expected that the war would be finished in 1915, and that the vessel would not be operational by then and thus was a waste of valuable resources.][
On 19 June 1915, after Churchill had been replaced as First Lord by ]Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (, ; 25 July 184819 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, was a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As foreign secretary in the ...
, a conference was held at the Admiralty to consider all airship development. At that time the non-rigid airship
A blimp, or non-rigid airship, is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of the lifting gas (usually helium, rather than hydr ...
programme was proving to be successful, and at this meeting it was agreed to expand the non-rigid programme and also to resume construction of HMA No.9. However, resumption of work was delayed by the necessity to retrieve Pratt and Wallis who had enlisted in the Army when construction was cancelled.[Higham 1961, p. 128] Final erection of the ship began in the autumn of that year, but there were delays in obtaining flax from Ireland to make nets for the gasbags following the Easter Rising, and the ship was not completed until 28 June 1916.[
]
Operational history
On 16 November 1916, No. 9r left its shed and was moored outside for tests of the fittings and engines, the first test flight taking place on 27 November 1916. This was the first time a British rigid airship had flown; however, it was unable to lift the contract weight of 3.1 tons. It was therefore lightened by the removal of both rear engines, replacing them with a single engine that had been salvaged from the Zeppelin ''L 33'' which had made a forced landing in Little Wigborough, Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
, on 24 September 1916.[ New, lighter, gasbags were also fitted. These modifications increased the disposable lift to 3.8 tons (3861 kg), and it was accepted by the Navy in April 1917.][Higham 1916, p. 347-8]
No.9r was then sent to the RNAS
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps t ...
airship station at Howden
Howden () is a market and minster town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies in the Vale of York to the north of the M62, on the A614 road about south-east of York and north of Goole, which lies across the ...
in the East Riding of Yorkshire
The East Riding of Yorkshire, or simply East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a ceremonial county and unitary authority area in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, South Yorkshire to t ...
where it spent most of the time being used for experimental mooring and handling tests. From 17 October 1917 to June 1918 it was stationed at RNAS Pulham
RNAS Pulham (later RAF Pulham) was a Royal Navy Air Service (RNAS) airship station, near Pulham St Mary south of Norwich, UK. Though land was purchased by the Admiralty in 1912 the site was not operational until 1915. From 1918 to 1958, the ...
in Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...
where it was finally dismantled due to demand for shed space to allow construction of newer airships, having spent 198 hours and 16 minutes in the air, of which some 33 hours were at a 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 allow ...
. Although unable to compete against contemporary Zeppelins, No.9r provided valuable experience of handling a rigid airship and the use of mooring masts, which would evolve into a unique method of mooring airships.[
]
Specifications
See also
Notes
References
* Higham, Robin. ''The British Rigid Airship 1908-1931''. London: Foulis, 1961.
* Morpurgo, J. E. ''Barnes Wallis — A Biography'', Longman, 1972 .
* Mowthorpe, Ces ''Battlebags: British Airships of the First World War'', 1995 .
* Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik, ''Jane's Pocket Book 7 — Airship Development'', 1976 .
* Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik, ''Airship saga: The history of airships seen through the eyes of the men who designed, built, and flew them'', 1982, .
External links
Airship Heritage Trust HMA No. 9r
{{Vickers aircraft
Airships of the United Kingdom
1910s British experimental aircraft
1910s British military trainer aircraft
No. 9r
Vickers airships