86YO

[Guy Profumo]

In the early morning of 5th October 1930, the airship R101 crashed in France on her inaugural commercial flight with the loss of 48 souls.

It effectively marked the end of rigid airship development in the UK.

[Gangster Octopus]

86YO

Until this year...

[caja-dglh]

86YO

It is unfortunate when you are on a message board where someone can fact check your rigid airship claims within four minutes.

[San Bernardhinault]

86YO

The R101 is such a great metaphor for so many things, for overpromising and overengineering, and for the government overinvesting in the big grand vanity project.

Meanwhile, the much simpler R100 (designed by Barnes Wallis), was also much cheaper and much more effective and had a successful maiden flight.

Both aircraft were built as part of the same competition, but because the R101 was built by the air ministry and had all the political capital invested in it, the failure of the R101 meant that the entire UK airship program was scrapped.

[Guy Profumo]

86YO

Gangster Octopus wrote: Until this year...

Not been keeping up to date on that, but isn't that a blimp rather than a dirigible?