The ''R.80'' was a British

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 airsh ...

, first flown on 19 July 1920, and was the first fully streamlined airship to be built in Britain. Originally a military project for the

British Admiralty The Admiralty was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of it ...

, it was completed for commercial passenger-carrying. ''R.80'' proved too small for this role and after being used briefly to train the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

personnel who were to crew the ''

ZR-2 The ''R.38'' class (also known as the ''A'' class) of rigid airships was designed for Britain's Royal Navy during the final months of the First World War, intended for long-range patrol duties over the North Sea. Four similar airships were o ...

'' airship, ''R.80'' was retired and eventually scrapped in 1925.

Development

Construction was begun 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 in 18 ...

in their airship shed 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 ...

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, 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 Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 the ...

, in November 1917 to a design by

Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack ...

and H. B. Pratt. Vickers had originally contracted to build '' R.37'', but due to a lack of vacant sheds and a war-time steel shortage preventing construction of a new larger one, the smaller shed at Walney was used instead. This had been used to build '' R.27'' and '' R.29'', and the size of the R.80 was limited by the small size of the shed. Work progressed slowly due to labour shortages, and with the end of the

First World War 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 ...

, the future of military airships was reviewed. The

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 ...

stopped the work in the summer of 1919 as it was considered that the ship was no longer of military or commercial value. Vickers continued to fit out the ship with commercial objectives in mind but the scheme fell through. Co-designer H. B. Pratt completed a report envisaging an intercity European flight route, similar to that being run by the

Zeppelin 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 ...

company:

"The route chosen to Rome is 1,000 land miles which is within the endurance of the ship. It is expected that the ship will fly at a maximum height of 2,000 ft. The route will carry the ship over south England, the over the English Channel to Paris on a direct route. The ship will then deliver mail and passengers, and then pass down in a continued south easterly direction towards Lyon. Passing over Lyon, the ship will turn south through the Rhone Valley and the continue to Nice. At Nice on the French Coast, the ship will turn easterly and skirt the coast and head towards Rome over the sea. The return course will be via the same route."

Operational history

The outer cover was completed in April 1920 and by June the ship was finished. On 19 July, the ship emerged from its shed for its first flight. The ship was damaged on the trial flight as the ship had not been properly ballasted, and the lifting gas heated causing the ship to rise too fast. The result was extensive buckling of the framework. The ship was returned to its shed to be repaired, which took until January 1921. After further test flights the airship flew to the 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 Ri ...

, East Yorkshire in February where it was used for training the United States personnel who would crew the R.38 (ZR-2). The US Navy made 4 flights in the ship totalling some 8 hours 45 minutes between 26 March 1921 and 1 June 1921. After these flights it was flown to

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 u ...

, Norfolk. There the airframe was used for stress analysis and destructive testing before being dismantled in 1925. In total, this relatively small but well designed craft flew for only 73 hours. Although the trials were successful it was too small for its intended use. Many lessons were learnt, and incorporated in the design for the ''

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 ot ...

''. One of the lasting innovations introduced by

during construction was the first use ever of colour-coded wiring for the electrical systems of an aircraft.

Specifications

References

*Griehl, Manfred and Dressel, Joachim ''Zeppelin! The German Airship Story''. 1990 *Higham, Robin. ''The British Rigid Airship 1908–1931''. Henley-on-Thames: Foulis, 1961. *Morpurgo, J. E. ''Barnes Wallis - A Biography''. London: Longman, 1972 *Mowthorpe, Ces ''Battlebags: British Airships of the First World War''. 1995 *Swinfield, John. ''Airship: Design, Development and Disaster''. London: Conway, 2012. *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

Walney Island Airship Sheds
{{Vickers aircraft 1920s British airliners Airships of the United Kingdom R80 Vickers airships Barnes Wallis