R100 was a success by the looks of it, with some great engines too.

I have always thought the R-100 was the most beautiful airship ever built. A shame it had to suffer it's sad fate after the demise of the R-101. Nevil Shute Norway and Barnes Wallis have my eternal admiration for conceiving such a wondrous design. Thank you for you brilliant film!

Thanks for the video! My Great Uncle "Major G. H. Scott" flew on the R-100 to Canada, plus he was the Captain of the Famous "R-34 Atlantic Flight" (round trip England to USA). He died on the R-101. They were great Airmen!

I live close to the Airship Hangers at Cardington, Hanger One is still used for the development of airships, the Airlander Project and I was fortunate to see it on one of its test flights in 2017. The other Hanger is managed by Cardington Studios for film productions and stage designs. All of these make for an interesting life around the hangers. Incidentally both hangers have now been restored

I enjoyed your video. In the 1950's I spent an afternoon in the company of the coxswain of the R100. One of his memories that stayed with me is of his telling how the crew would climb on the top of the airship and lie behind the fin, sheltered from the slipstream, and sunbathe!

Thank you Nevil Shute Norway! This great author was the chief "calculator" who made this airship a success.

Great underneath images of the R-100. More windows than expected. Nice that details of the six powerplants, the Conqueror, were given.

Great video. Really interesting to see a feature on the R-100; its success always tends to be overshadowed by the R-101 tragedy. It would have been great to travel on one of those beauties (although bailing out before Beauvais in the R101's case.)

Excellent

I came to this video while half-way through reading Nevil Shute Norway's fascinating autobiography "Slide Rule" where he goes into great detail about designing and building this amazing aircraft. There's no doubt in my mind that new technologies are bringing about a renaissance of airships. The big money for R&D will probably come from defence budgets, but if the end justifies the means, why not?

thanks for the Comment much appreciated glad you enjoyed it, It was a shame the program was cancelled but airships keep trying to make a comeback hope fully in the not to distant future they will

Great video, I really enjoyed it. It's such a shame the whole program was cancelled because of the loss of the R101. Thanks for the video.

A fascinating account of a little known episode in history, well presented and so detailed. Glad you mentioned Nevil Shute Norway, so few people know of him now and he is such a good writer.

@48alfaone They certainly were great Aimen and pioneers in Aviation. I well remember filming the R101 memorial for this film, it was on 25th December 2008 around dinner time it was so quiet whilst i was filming the memorial as most people wer settling down to their Christmas dinner the bells on St Mary's church rang out the time its a moment I put in the film to the fallen of the R101, thank you for your comment

@rhimember72 Thanks for the Comment and the sub have to be honest couldn't agree more about Nevil Shute I have read most of his books, and thats down to my mum, she was always a fan of his works and once bought me a copy of I think it was Rainbow and the Rose read it and enjoyed it and tried to get as many of his books as i could the only one i wasn't keen on was on the beach which was a little sinister I thought.

Thanks very much for putting in the effort to make this video, it helped a lot! Truly great!

Bravo! A much-overlooked success. Has to be said that the Dragon Rapide was a lovely plane for its time, and that also had quite a lot of Nevil Shute in it. Thanks for this.

great great video! i really enjoyed it. thanks for posting it!

This was brilliant thsnk you very much

Excellent video - very informative.

It was this event that proved to Nevil Shute Norway that private industry was superior to that of public funded research & development. We can see a good deal of waste & profiteering in regards to the F-35, a plane of dubious value while touted as useful for all institutions of the DOD. Even the main proponent of extreme standardization MacNamara was apologetic for what his influence had wrought. There are things that government does better than private industry. The reason for this is that when the missions are clearly stated, the post office being a prime example, the mission is accomplished as it has been set down by the leadership. Goals matter a great deal. If the goal is all murky, for profit and the public good, well then inevitably a level of corruption is introduced and nothing seems to turn out well.

@thedarkvaleman Thanks very much glad you liked it, would of liked to have had a flight on one of the large ridgids to preferably the original Graf Zeppelin, I was lucky enough to get a flight on the Good Year Blimp recently that was fun

virtualmuseum.ca released a short podcast on the R-100 for our series "History Matters" yesterday (on the home page, icon on the right of the page) that you might find interesting. The episode is linked to an online exhibition produced by the Société historique du Marigot with over 100 fantastic photos. Also, if you didn't see, Scientific American published an article on May 4 about the return of the airship. Thanks for the video! ~ Dave, Virtual Museum of Canada

An interesting study of one of the three rigid airships worldwide that didn't ultimately crash and/or burn.

@peterkar thank you for watching glad you liked it

Listening to the account given by engineerguy in his book, "Fatal Flight" it seems like they were determined to wreck the R.101 with all of the showboating and what have you. It was a real shame too given how successful the R.100 and the North Shore class airships were.

thank you for watching

A classic example of gold-plated government programs vs private programs (even if government funded). The R-100 had a fixed budget, and Vickers met it. The R-101 was overbuilt and needed more gas cells to have useful lift. The skin may have been compromised due to reaction between the doping to tighten the fabric and the glue to hold it in place. Plus, the R-101 had to leave due to political time pressure, overloaded, also due to political considerations (could not subject VIPs to diesel fuel fumes refueling in Egypt, so carried extra fuel) Can anyone tie this attiude to the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster? I thought you could.

yay go Howden

thanks hoping to do one on the R101 in the not to distant future

@48alfaone I have to agree thats a good way of getting some idea how they would of looked as with Trev like i say he really is Mr Airship a font of airship knowledge, and many thanks for your interesting comments

@MvcVmc Thanks very much, sounds interesting will check it out many thanks

think you will find there were a lot more ridgid ships that didn't crash and burn to name a few R 100, Graf Zeppelin, Graf Zeppelin 2, R 80, R.M.A.9, HMA 23, HMA 24, HMA25, R26, R29, R31, R32 (tested to destruction), R33, the French ridgid Spiess, Los Angeles(ZR-3/LZ126) , thats just some of the ones that were dismantled at the end of their lives,

@gaz11h Thanks to your video i now see the final resting place of my uncle G.H. Scott. Are the names of those lost in the R-101 crash on the Memorial? Thanks again for the great video, Kev from Canada.

@gaz11h Hey thanks for the info, i am going to connect with Trev through my kids facebook stuff. We get 600-1000 foot Ocean Freighters past here, i look at them and imagine one of them flying, that's what those Airships would look like, huge haha. Thanks for the video again, Kev.

That's why my username is "English Airship".

At 5:24, Canada did not use that until 1965!

The R 100's success and the failure of the R 101 should have been instructive about how to manage large engineering projects.

Hello gaz, What info do you have concerning the St Hubert Airport airship tower in Canada? I know the tower is gone, but I've heard possibly some of the cable securing anchor rings surrounding this tower may still exist.

@48alfaone All the names of those on the R101 are on the memorial Gorge H Sott appears on the far side of the Memorial from the gate if you are on Facebook I can let you have photos of the Memorial also I noticed when i subscribed yesterday you also subscribed to trevorcardington and he actually lives in Cardington and is quiet an authority on airships again he is on facebook also and does run quiet a few airship groups and also has a photo of the crew of the R101 thaks again

Was the R100 significantly differently designed to the R101? Did the R100 suffer any of the same issues regarding the outer linen cover that on the R101 started to Rot? Fatastic magical machines that can capture most imaginations! They are no good in a storm now though are they? :)

Who else is from Howden?

Dismantling the R100 instead of putting it into passenger service was government mandated vandalism.