THE AIRSHIP AT HER MOORINGS. One of the greatest difficulties connected with airships — their handling and control when not in flight — was successfully overcome by the mooring mast, one of the first of which was tried at Pulham Airship Station, Norfolk. The nose of the airship was attached to the mast-head, trim being maintained by means of balance weights fixed to the stern. The airship was allowed to swing with the wind. Here the R33 is seen secured to the mast.
IT was a wet and windy day over the Humber, in June, 1920, as the last of the long line of British non-rigid airships, the N.S.7, was beating up the river to Howden. The water below was invisible at a thousand feet up, but when heavy gusts struck the ship she dived towards the yellow-coloured river, which could then be seen five hundred feet below in spite of the pouring rain.
Flight-Lieutenant Herbert Irwin and his crew, keeping the ship well in hand, dropped ballast, and eased down their engines, and not long after they arrived at Howden, dropped the trail rope for ballast. The experience of thirteen years’ continuous work with non-rigid airships had given the crews such skill that they could handle them under any conditions, while the ships were the products of experienced designers.
The British fleet of non-rigid airships had played a very important part in the defeat of the U-boat in British seas. As the British were so successful with the smaller ships, there is no reason to doubt that if only it had persevered, Britain would also have been successful with rigid airships. It was not until 1919 that, with the arrival of the R32, R33 and R34, Britain ever had efficient “stiff” ships, and all of these were of German design.
The first, a wooden Schutte-Lanz, was mainly used as a school ship, while the last, the famous R34, had been the first airship to cross the Atlantic (see the chapter “The R34’s Record Flights”). There was also the smaller, home-designed R80, but, although our best effort up to that date, she was hardly as efficient as the other ships.
A rigid airship consists of a streamline hull divided by transverse frames into bays, each bay containing a gasbag with its gas-valve. The frames are connected by longitudinal girders, and a keel (or keels) containing petrol and ballast tanks runs along the bottom of the hull. This strengthens the ship and forms a walking way. The hull is covered by a fabric outer cover. From the hull are slung the engine cars, those mounted on the side being known as wing cars, while that near the bows is known as the control car (see the chapter “Construction of Rigid Airships”).
Mounted aft on the stern of the hull are the stabilizing and control surfaces worked bv wheels from the control car, where also the gas and ballast controls are placed and engine room telegraphs. In the extreme nose is the mooring cone, known as the “dew drop”.
A rigid is naturally more difficult to design and construct than a non-rigid, and whereas Britain had continuous experience from 1907 to 1918 in designing the latter, it had only intermittent experience with the former. British rigid designers, who lacked the experience of foreign designers and had no data to guide them, were expected to produce ships as efficient as contemporary ones.
It was only in the autumn of 1916, when the German Zeppelin L33 was left almost intact in East Anglia, that our designers had anything to work on. This ship was copied, and the result was the R33and R34. After that Britain again broke away, to an extent, from Zeppelin practice, but the results were not so good.
So far as rigid design was concerned, Britain was, in fact, back in the early days of flying, and the crews had only their non-rigid experience to aid them. Perhaps the the R33, commanded by the late Flight-Lieutenant Godfrey Main Thomas, D.F.C., was Britain’s most successful rigid. She had carried out long flights over Europe from Pulham in 1919, and for the fleet from East Fortune and Howden. One wild night, she was struck by lightning but survived.
Meanwhile the Germans had shown that airships could be used commercially, and so it was decided to emulate them. As Continental weather is better than our own, mooring experiments were called for and attempts made to reduce the number of men in handling parties, tor reasons of economy. So in February, 1921, the R33 flew to Pulham and was put on to the mast for which the late Major George Herbert Scott had invented a new and much improved mooring head.
The nose of the R100 is seen being hauled on to the latest type of mooring mast at Cardington. A lift ran to the top of the 200 ft. high tower and from the upper platform passengers passed across a gangway into the airship.
Between February and August, 1921, the R33 spent some 150 days on the mast, making over a hundred flights, often going up when the Howden ships were shed-bound. It was soon shown that the Pulham mast, with its farmyard traction engine, had made airships practically independent of the weather. Up to then a rigid could hardly leave her shed in a higher wind than twenty miles an hour, and then it would have to be blowing up and down the shed.
On one occasion the R33 was ordered to make a night flight to Croydon It was pouring with rain, with low clouds scudding across the sky, and a forty-mile wind blowing at the mast head. No other aircraft could have gone out under such conditions, but the R33 fulfilled her mission without any difficulty.
Then again she landed to the mast one afternoon in July in a wind of over thirty miles an hour with even stronger gusts. She took some time in doing it, and it was a wonderful sight, seeing her being played like a giant fish. A Cabinet Minister, who was Air-Commodore Edward Maitland’s guest on board, was greatly impressed, and told us that no liner could have come alongside in such weather, and yet less than a dozen men were needed to handle her. It can be claimed that the problem had been solved; all that remained was to design an improved mast and hauling-in gear and gain further training experience. Thorough running repairs could even be carried out when moored. A new engine and propeller were shipped and repairs made in the nose of the hull, and, last but not least, a new gas-bag put in.
The reason for this was as follows. On a flight in May the ship suddenly began to climb and the height coxswain was unable to get her tail up. She took up an angle of about twenty degrees, and then one of the riggers reported that No. 13 gas-bag had deflated. In a moment Flight-Lieutenant Thomas, the commander, was dropping ballast aft, and then he moved the bulk of the crew to the bows, and thus the situation was saved. If he had not acted promptly, and if the ship had not been designed by experts, she might have broken in two.
THE R36, AN UNLUCKY AIRSHIP. The R36 in her shed, as she appeared the morning after her accident in mooring; a misfortune due partly to the inexperience of the pilot and partly to the fact that only a farmyard tractor engine was available for hauling in. In the foreground can be seen the remains of the dismantled surrendered Zeppelin the L64.
It was a minute or so before the crew knew what had happened, and it is possible something similar happened with the R101, only then they were flying in the dark and in very bad weather, and the crew did not know their ship as well as the R33’s crew did.
Mention must now be made of the R36, an enlarged R33, fitted with a passenger coach. She proved to be unlucky from the start, for after making a good flight down from Scotland in May, she broke two of her fins on her first flight from Pulham, diving for some thousand feet and having to limp home. Major Scott, who was in charge of all flying operations at Pulham but was not captain of the ship, brought her back intact, and soon she was out again making one or two long flights.
One evening, when being hauled into the mast, she overshot it, and the mooring cable, pulling backwards into her nose, smashed it. The sheds were full, she could not remain on the mast, and the meteorological officer said the wind would soon rise. Furthermore, she was in no state to be flown to Howden.
It was decided to make room in the sheds by breaking up one of the surrendered Zeppelins, the L64. All hands worked with a will, tools were obtained, and at dawn the remains of L64 were towed out of one end of the shed while the R36 was being brought in from the opposite side. It was not a moment too soon, for the wind had risen and further damage had been done, the ship drifting against the side and hitting the roof of the shed.
The R36 never flew again, and when her actual skipper, Flight-Lieutenant Herbert Irwin, stepped out of the control car, he broke down on seeing the damage. To those on the ground, it was a night of hectic activity, for great difficulties were encountered in getting the L64 out of its shed. First, a line was made fast running through her length, but when the tractor started to pull, the hull hardly moved, and in the end Scott had to have her dragged out in pieces, while Mrs. Scott, after this unfortunate episode, kept everyone going with food. The R33 went back to the mast, flying under every kind of weather. One day, in fact, she was the only aircraft up.
Economy was now the watchword, and the Air Ministry announced that they would abandon airships as soon as the new R38, which was destined for the U.S.A., had finished her trials. Of British design, she was known to be weak, but the trials were hurried on and she broke in two over Hull on August 24, 1921, Air-Commodore Maitland, the mainstay of the airship cause, was killed, and with him also Flight-Lieutenants Thomas, Rupert Montague, Charles Little, James Pritchard, and Flying Officers Wicks and Thomas Mathewson, names unknown to the public, but honoured by their comrades.
THE TRAGIC END OF THE R38. The crash of the R38, built in England for the American Government, over the Humber on August 24, 1921, with the loss of 42 lives, was the first of the two great disasters which finally induced the British Government to abandon the building of airships. This photograph shows the mangled remnants of the R38 after salvage.
Now airship disbanding went on apace, the R33 going to Bedford and the R80 to Cardington, both being slung, the R32 having been broken up previously. The year 1922 threatened to see the destruction of these ships, but commercial interests again became active and the Committee of Imperial Defence also showed re-awakened interest.
At last, in May, 1924, it was announced that two 5,000,000 cubic feet ships would be constructed, and that the existing ships would be used for experiments. The R33 was reconditioned and flown to the Pulham mast, the crew having had no flying practice for nearly four years. A few days later she broke away in a gale with Flight-Lieutenant Ralph S. Booth, A.F.C., and a small crew, the two forward bays and gas-bags being severely damaged. The bows were strengthened as much as was possible, the ship drifting astern across the North Sea. Owing to the ship’s damaged nose, it was impossible to drive her ahead against the gale, and it was only after the wind had dropped that Booth landed her at Pulham after a flight of thirty hours. He had been greatly helped by the wireless, but at times the situation seemed desperate, for they sank so low that those in the control car were wetted by the spray from the waves. Nothing could be done, for there was very little ballast or petrol on board, but by great good fortune the ship slowly rose again. At other times she only made five knots against the wind, for with her smashed bows it was impossible to go ahead except under reduced power.
Booth might have landed in Holland, and, even if no help had been available, could have brought the ship down low and the crew could have jumped to safety. In this case no lives would have been lost, but the ship would have been wrecked. He preferred, however, to face the stormy North Sea and the darkness. This accident proved that a properly designed and well-handled airship could stand up to almost anything.
AN AIRSHIP CARRIES PLANES. A daring experiment was made in 1926 when the R33 carried two Gloster “Grebe” aeroplanes slung to her keel on a flight. At 2,000 feet the planes, piloted by Flying-Officers R. L. Ragg and Campbell Mackenzie-Richards, were released, and after diving, flew round and landed. Later the machines succeeded in “hooking on” to the airship while in flight, a remarkable achievement. Shown here is a “Grebe” swooping away after release.
After being repaired, the R33 became a flying laboratory. Later she dropped and caught aeroplanes, showing that airships might be used as aircraft carriers. In 1927, although good for much more flying, she was scrapped, together with the R36, which it was hoped to take out to Egypt for mooring trials. Some of the crew were discharged for the second time, and when the R100 and R101 were ready, they had to be flown by crews that had had no recent flying experience, and that included some men who had never flown.
The R100, built at Howden by the Airship Guarantee Company, was commanded by R. S. Booth, now promoted to the rank of squadron-leader, and was destined to be used for experimental flights over the Empire along with the Cardington-built R101. The former was flown down from Howden in December, 1929, and was put on to the Cardington tower. She was of unique design, with tubular longitudinal girders, and a passenger coach built inside the hull. The outer cover design was new and she had only three engine cars, each with two motors, working a propeller and screw in each.
ALTHOUGH THE R100 ESCAPED THE DISASTROUS FATE THAT BEFELL THE R101, her brief history is not without its tragic note. Supreme effort went into her design and construction, and her successful double Atlantic flight augured well for her future, the airship taking shape in 1929, with a mechanic working on one of her huge engine cars.
Although several tons on the heavy side, she attained a speed of over eighty miles an hour, making her the fastest airship to that date, and, except for outer cover trouble and gas-bag nipping, she did very well. She flew in all weathers, often flying blind for hours on end, and, as experience was gained, it was found possible to land and leave the mast in any ordinary weather.
She was now supposed to be ready for an Empire flight, and so, on her eighth ascent, set off for Montreal. Leaving on July 29, 1930, she made a record crossing, but when near Quebec, ran into a heavy storm, which damaged the fin coverings and made an enormous hole in the port fin. Riggers were soon climbing about the girders putting things to rights, and were later joined by some of the engineers, fifteen men working on the port fin. All this took about two hours and then speed was once more increased.
THE R100 MAKES A SPECTACULAR EMPIRE FLIGHT. The voyage of the R100 from England to Montreal and back in August, 1930, raised hopes that the Empire might be linked up by a service of airships. The R100, commanded by Squadron-Leader Ralph S. Booth, left Cardington, Beds., on July 29, 1930, and 79 hours later reached Montreal. On August 13 the return journey was begun and Cardington was reached in 57 hours. Here the R100 is seen flying over Montreal.
At about 7.30 on the evening of the 31st, a thunderstorm approached when they were flying at 1,200 feet in the dark. She had clouds in front and on both sides. Then she began to rise fast with her nose pointing earthwards. The height coxswain had her nose down by twenty degrees, but she climbed the last thousand feet in fifteen seconds.
She landed soon after dawn on August 1. The fins being repaired, a twenty-four-hour flight was made, and she set out for home on August 13. She landed fifty-seven hours later. She had done her job and had proved that, even if serious mishaps occur, an airship can get there. So she was put in the shed to allow the R101 to take the air.
All know how that unfortunate ship was allowed to attempt the Indian flight without ever having been flown in bad weather or even having carried out speed trials. She crashed near Beauvais, France, and after preparing the R100 for further flights, this airship was eventually sold for £450.
British airships for the time being had come to an end, and all the skill and devotion, not to mention the hard cash spent on them, has apparently been spent in vain. Meanwhile the Germans captured the South American service and along with the North Atlantic also, using the mooring mast which the British invented and developed. Their crews are daily gathering that experience without which it is impossible to fly airships under all conditions.
DEATH OF THE R100 IN 1931. In 1931 the R100 was handed over to “breakers” for scrap. This photograph shows the giant airship being dismantled.
ad shown that airships could be used commercially, and so it was decided to emulate them. As Continental weather is better than our own, mooring experiments were called for and attempts made to reduce the number of men in handling parties, tor reasons of economy. So in February, 1921, the R33 flew to Pulham and was put on to the mast for which the late Major George Herbert Scott had invented a new and much improved mooring head.
