A Photo of an Airship
Last night I was going through some old photos of my mother-in-law’s and found a couple of pictures of an airship.
Here’s the best one.
The Airship Photo
On reading the call-sign on the side as G-FAAW, it became obvious with a bit of searching the Internet, that the airship, was the ill-fated R101, which crashed on its first flight in France.
The R101 is one of those projects, that suffered from bad design and management. It should also be said that there appears to have been a lot of political interference. After all the R101 was the government’s project to rival the capitalist R100, so I don’t think they wanted it to fail.
But was this pressure worth the lives of the 48 people, who died with the R101?
The picture looks like it was taken in the area of Cardington, but it might be elsewhere.
My mother-in-law and in fact others in North London, including my own mother, were somewhat fascinated by airships. A lot of this was probably due to the shooting down of the German airship by Captain Leefe Robinson in September 1916 at Cuffley, the fire of which could be seen a hundred miles away. I think both would have been about four at the time and it was something that must have made an impression on both their lives. Somewhere, I’ve seen a tin box of the remains of the downed airship, that had been scavanged by perhaps a child at the time.
The Anonymous Widower 
This is indeed the R101 at the mooring mast at Cardington near Bedford. That was the only mast of its type in the UK. There was another, plus a hangar, at her destination in India. It was on her maiden trip on this route that she crashed in France. October 5th 1930.
The R101 was in fact a very well designed airship and very advanced for her day, but she was a prototype and rushed into service for the trip to India, as a result of political pressure, before she was ready.
That is a great photo! You can find more of the R101 and other airships here:
http://airshipphotos.zenfolio.com/f1051927706
Paul A Adams
Comment by Paul Adams | September 6, 2010 |
I can’t really comment on the design, but as someone who laid down a lot of project management principles, all of the bad management signs were there, with quite a few well out of their depth.
I do think though that although many have tried, with all the modern technology we now have, we still haven’t got anywhere nearer to a commercial airship, for many of the applications that theoretically they might be good at, like moving awkward things long distances, offshore surveillnce, observing large events and just plin pleasure flights.
Incidentally, the photo was taken with something like a Box Brownie. Another of my late wife at about four on the beach at Tower Bridge was good enough to be used as a book cover for Martin Knight’s book, Battersea Girl.
So perhaps those twenties cameras weren’t so bad after all!
There are others of the R101 and I’ll see if I can put them up. These seem to have been taken, whilst the airship was flying away from its mast.
Comment by AnonW | September 6, 2010 |
I would very much like to see the other photos you have. I will try to date them.
Thanks!
Comment by Paul Adams | September 6, 2010 |
I’ll try to get them scanned today. It’s good practice for my gammy left hand after the stroke. I’ve replied to you off blog as well.
Comment by AnonW | September 6, 2010 |
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