| R101 | |
|---|---|
| Role | Experimental airship |
| Manufacturer | Royal Airship Works |
| Designer | V.C. Richmond |
| First flight | 14 October 1929[1] |
| Number built | 1 |
| Program cost | £711,595[2] |
R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airship completed in 1929 as part of a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. It was designed and built by an Air Ministry-appointed team and was effectively in competition with the government-funded but privately-designed and built R100. When built it was the world's largest flying craft,[3] and it was not surpassed until the Hindenburg flew five years later.
After some trial flights, and subsequent modifications to increase lifting capacity which included lengthening the airship by 46 ft (14 m),[4] it crashed on 5 October 1930 in France during its maiden overseas voyage, killing 48 of the 54 people on board. Among the passengers were Lord Thomson, the Air Minister who had initiated the programme, and other senior officials, including the airship's designers. The crash of R101 effectively ended British airship development. The loss of R101 was one of the worst airship accidents of the 1930s. The loss of life was greater than in the Hindenburg disaster of 1937 and was second only to that of the USS Akron crash in 1933.
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R101 was the result of a British government initiative to develop airships to provide passenger and mail transport from Britain to the most distant parts of the British Empire, including India, Australia and Canada. These distances were too great for conventional aircraft of the period. The Burney Scheme of 1922 had proposed a civil airship development programme carried out by a specially established subsidiary of Vickers with the support of the British government, but when the General Election of 1923 brought Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour administration to power the new Air Minister, Lord Thomson formulated the Imperial Airship Scheme in its place. This called for the building of two experimental airships: one, R101, to be designed and constructed under direction of the Air Ministry, and the other, R100, to be built by Vickers's Airship Guarantee Company under a fixed price contract (hence the nicknames "the Socialist Airship" and the "Capitalist Airship").
In addition to the building of the two airships, the scheme involved the establishment of the necessary infrastructure for airship operations; for example, the mooring masts used at Cardington, Ismalia, Karachi and Montreal had to be designed and built and the meteorological forecasting network extended and improved.
Specifications for the airships were drawn up by an Air Ministry committee whose members included Squadron Leader Reginald Colmore and Lieutenant-Colonel Vincent Richmond, both of whom had extensive experience with airships, principally nonrigid ones. These called for airships of not less than five million cubic feet (140,000 m³) capacity and a fixed structural weight not to exceed 90 tons, giving a "disposable lift" of nearly 62 tons. With the necessary allowance of about 20 tons for the service load consisting of a crew of approximately 40, stores, and water ballast this meant a possible fuel and passenger load of 42 tons. Accommodation for 100 passengers and tankage for 57 hours' flight was to be provided and a sustainable cruise speed of 63 mph (101 km/h) and maximum speed of 70 mph (110 km/h) was called for. In wartime, the airships would be expected to carry 200 troops, or alternatively five fighter aircraft.
Vickers's design team was led by Barnes Wallis, who had extensive experience of rigid airship design and later became famous for the bouncing bomb. As a principal assistant (the "Chief Calculator") Nevil Shute Norway, later well known as a novelist. Shute gives his account of the design and construction of the two airships in his autobiography, Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer, which was first published in 1954. Shute's book characterises R100 as a pragmatic and conservative design, and R101 as extravagant and over-ambitious. One purpose of having two design teams was to test different approaches, with R101 deliberately intended to extend the limits of existing technology. Shute later admitted that many of his criticisms of the R101 team were unjustified.[5]
An extremely optimistic timetable was drawn up, with construction of the government-built airship to be begun in July 1925 and complete by the following July, with a trial flight to India being planned for January 1927. In actuality, the extensive experimentation that was carried out delayed the actual start of production of R101 until early 1927. R100 was also delayed, and neither flew until late 1929.
The whole airship programme was under the direction of the Director of Airship Development (DAD), Group Captain Peregrine Fellowes, with Colmore acting as his deputy. Lieutenant-Colonel Richmond was appointed Director of Design[N 1] with Squadron Leader Michael Rope as his assistant, and the Director for Flying and Training, responsible for all operational matters for both ships, was Major G.H. Scott, who had developed the design of the mooring masts that were to be built. It was based at the Royal Airship Factory at Cardington, Bedfordshire, which had been built by Short Brothers (Shorts) during the First World War and had been employed by the Admiralty to copy and improve on the latest German designs from captured rigid airships. It had been nationalised in 1919 but after the loss of the R38 (then in the process of being transferred to the US as ZR2) naval airship development was stopped and it had been placed on a care and maintenance basis.
R101 was to be built only after an extensive research and test programme was complete. This was carried out by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). As part of this programme, the Air Ministry funded the costs of refurbishing and flying R33 in order to gather data about structural loads and the airflow around a large airship. Some of this data was supplied to Vickers; both airships had the same elongated tear-drop shape, unlike previous airship designs. This shape had been found to produce the minimum amount of drag. Safety was a primary concern and this would have an important influence on the choice of engines.
An early decision had been made to construct the primary structure largely from stainless steel rather than lightweight alloys such as duralumin. The design of the primary structure was shared between Cardington and the aircraft manufacturer Boulton and Paul, who had extensive experience in the use of steel and had developed innovative techniques for forming steel strip into structural sections. Working to an outline design prepared with the help of data supplied by the NPL, the stress calculations were performed by Cardington. This information was then supplied to J.D. North and his team at Boulton and Paul, who designed the actual metalwork. The individual girders were fabricated by Boulton and Paul in Norwich and transported to Cardington where they were bolted together. This scheme for a prefabricated structure entailed demanding manufacturing tolerances and was entirely successful, as the ease with which R101 was eventually extended bears witness. Before any contracts for the metalwork were signed, an entire bay consisting of a pair of the 15-sided transverse ring frames and the connecting longitudinal girders was assembled at Cardington. After the assembly had passed loading tests, the individual girders were then tested to destruction. The structure of the airframe was innovative: the ring-shaped transverse frames of previous airships had been braced by radial wires meeting at a central hub, but no such bracing was used in R101, the frames being stiff enough in themselves.[6] However, this resulted in the structure extending further into the envelope, thereby limiting the size of the gasbags.
The specifications drawn up in 1924 by the Committee for the Safety of Airships in 1924 had based weight estimates on the then existing rules for airframe strengths. However, the Air Ministry Inspectorate introduced a new set of rules for airship safety standards in late 1924 and compliance with these as-yet unformulated rules had been explicitly mentioned in the individual specifications for each airship. These new rules called for all lifting loads to be transmitted directly to the transverse frames rather than being taken via the longitudinal girders. The intention behind this ruling was to enable the stressing of the framework to be fully calculated, rather than relying on empirically accumulated data, as was contemporary practise at the Zeppelin design office. Apart from the implications for the airframe weight, one effect of these regulations was to force both teams to contrive a new system of harnessing the gasbags. The patented "parachute" gasbag harnessing, designed by Michael Rope, proved less than satisfactory, permitting the gas bags to surge unduly, particularly in rough weather. This caused the gasbags to chafe against the structure, causing holes in the fabric. Another effect was that both R100 and R101 employed a relatively small number of longitudinal girders, in order to simplify the stressing calculations. In order to reduce the area of unsupported fabric in the covering R101 alternated the main longitudinals with non-structural "reefing booms", while R100 employed a system of wires to tension the covering, R101 used pre-doped linen panels for much of its covering, rather than lacing the panels into place and then applying dope to shrink it. This proved unsatisfactory from the start, with panels splitting because of humidity changes before the airship had even left its shed.
There were other innovative design features. Previously ballast containers had been made in the form of a leather "trousers", and one or other leg could be opened at the bottom by a cable-release from the control car. In R101, the extreme forward and aft ballast bags were of this type, and were locally operated, but the main ballast was held in tanks connected by pipes so that ballast could be transferred from one to another to alter the airship's trim using compressed air. The cover was also divided into fore and aft sections, with a loose vent on the upper side amidships,a low pressure region, and vents at the nose and tail, both high pressure regions. This was an ingenious arrangement which created a continuous flow of fresh air through the inside of the envelope, preventing any accumulation of escaped hydrogen within it.
Heavy-oil (diesel) engines were specified by the Air Ministry because the airship was intended for use on the India route, where it was thought that high temperatures would make petrol excessively volatile and flammable. Petrol fires had been a cause of death in the R38.[7]
Initial calculations were based on the use of seven Beardmore Typhoon six-cylinder, heavy-oil engines which were expected to weigh 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) and deliver 600 bhp (450 kW) each.[8] When the development of this engine proved impractical, the use of the eight-cylinder Beardmore Tornado was proposed instead. This was an engine being developed by Beardmore by combining two four-cylinder engines which had originally been developed for railway use. In March 1925 these were expected to weigh 3,200 pounds (1,500 kg) and deliver 700 bhp (520 kW) each. Due to the increased weight of each engine, it was decided to use five, resulting in overall power being reduced from 4,200 bhp (3,100 kW) to 3,500 bhp (2,600 kW).
Unexpectedly, crankshaft resonance was encountered above 950 rpm, limiting the engine to a maximum of 935 rpm, giving an output of only 650 bhp (485 kW) with a continuous power rating at 890 rpm of 585 bhp (436 kW). Other problems were encountered: the big end bearings were found to be prone to early failure, and gold plating had to be used to lengthen their life.[9] The engine was also considerably above estimated weight, at 4,773 pounds (2,165 kg) each, over double the initial estimate. Some of this excess weight was due to the failure to manufacture a satisfactory lightweight aluminium crankcase.
Another problem with the power installation was that the original intention had been to fit two of the engines with specially developed variable-pitch propellers in order to provide reverse thrust for manoeuvring during docking. These experiments were unsuccessful, and as a short term measure, one of the engines was fitted with a fixed-pitch reverse propeller, consequently becoming dead weight under normal flight conditions. [N 2] As finally flown, two of the engines were adapted to be capable of running in reverse by a simple modification of the timing gear.
The passenger accommodation was spread over two decks within the envelope and included 50 passenger cabins for one, two, or four people, a dining room for 60 people, two promenade decks with windows down the sides of the ship, a spacious lounge of 5,500 square feet (510 m2)[3] and even an asbestos-lined smoking room for 24 people. Most of the passenger space was on the upper deck, with the smoking room, kitchen and washrooms, crew accommodation, as well as the chart room and radio cabin on the lower deck.[11] The control car was immediately under the forward section of the lower deck and was reached by a ladder from the chart room.
Walls were made of doped linen painted in white and gold. Weight saving measures included wicker furniture and aluminium cutlery. The promenade windows were lightweight "Cellon" instead of the intended glass and one set were removed as part of later weight-saving measures.
The lengthy process of inflating the R101's gasbags began on 11 July 1929 and was complete by 21 September. With the airship now airborne and loosely tethered within the shed, it was now possible to carry out lift and trim trials. These were disappointing. A design conference held on 17 June 1929 had estimated a gross lift of 151.8 tons and a total airframe weight, including the power installation, of 105 tons. The actual figures proved to be a gross lift of 148.46 tons and a weight of 113.6 tons.[12] Moreover, the airship was tail-heavy with the tail surfaces considerably above estimated weight. In this form, flight to India was out of the question. Airship operations under tropical conditions were made more difficult by the loss of lift in high air temperatures. The loss of lift in Karachi was estimated to be as much as 10 tons for an airship the size of R101.
R101 was first walked out from her shed by a ground-handling party of 400 on 12 October 1929 and two days later, made a 5 hr 40 min journey to London and back. A second flight followed on 18 October. On 1 November, R101 flew over East Anglia including Norwich and the Boulton and Paul works there. This was followed by a flight to the Isle of Wight. By 18 November, seven flights had been made.[7] The seventh had been an endurance trial of nearly 31 hours carried out over England, Scotland and Ireland.[13]
While the initial flight trials were being carried out, the design team examined the lift problem. Studies identified possible weight savings of 3.16 tons. Letting the gasbags out would gain 3.18 tons extra lift, although Michael Rope considered this unwise.[14] There were thousands of exposed fixings protruding from the girders; chafing of the gasbags would have to be prevented by wrapping these in strips of cloth. To further increase lift, an extra bay of 500,000 cu ft (14,000 m3) capacity could be installed in R101. This would deliver an extra nine tons disposable lift. On 30 November R101 was taken from the mast and walked back into the shed to prepare for the modifications, and after much consultation, all these proposed measures were approved in December. Letting out the gasbags and the weight-saving measures were begun. Delivery of the extra bay by Boulton Paul was expected to take place in June. The outer cover was also giving cause for concern. Tests undertaken by Rope had shown that its strength had deteriorated alarmingly, leaving no margin of safety for flight in rough atmospheric conditions, and an inspection of the cover on 2 June found many small tears.[15] An immediate decision was taken to replace the pre-doped cover with a new cover which would be doped after fitting. This would take place following the flights which had been planned for June with the purpose of displaying R101 to the public at the Hendon Air Show. For these the cover would be reinforced with fabric bands.
Confirmation of the poor state of the cover came on the morning of 23 June when R101 was walked out of the shed. It had been at the mast for less than an hour in a moderate wind when an alarming rippling movement was observed and shortly afterward, a 90 ft (27 m) tear appeared on the right-hand side of the airship. It was decided to repair this at the mast and to add more strengthening bands, this work taking three days. R101 made three flights in June, totalling 29 hours 34 minutes duration. During these flights it became apparent that there there was excessive loss of hydrogen. An immediate inspection of the gasbags was ordered, large numbers of holes being found.
Concern was also raised over the possibility of loss of gas through the valves, which were of innovative design and also designed by Michael Rope. Airship valves are intended primarily to automatically vent gas if pressure in the bag rises to the point that the bag might rupture; they were also used to adjust lift for handling. Some concern was expressed over the valves opening because of either the airship rolling heavily or localised low pressure caused by the outer cover flapping, but after an examination of their operation F.W. McWade, the Air Inspectorate Department inspector at Cardington, concluded that their operation was satisfactory and they were not likely to be the cause of any significant loss of gas.
As an experimental aircraft R101 had been operating under a temporary "Permit to Fly", the responsibility of McWade. On 3 July, he wrote a letter to the Director of Aeronautical Inspection, Lieutenant-Colonel H.W.S. Outram expressing his unwillingness to recommend either an extension to the permit or the granting of the full Certificate of Airworthiness which would be necessary before the airship could fly in the airspace of other countries. His concern was that the padding on the framework was inadequate to protect the gasbags from chafing, the harnessing having been let out so that they were "hard up against the longitudinal girders", and that any surging of the gasbags would tend to loosen the padding, rendering it ineffective. He also expressed doubts about the use of padding, considering that it both made inspection of the airframe more difficult and would tend to trap moisture, making problems with corrosion more likely. Outram's reaction to this was to consult Colmore, at that point, Director of Airship Research, from whom he received a reassuring reply. The matter was taken no further.
R101 entered her shed for the extension on 29 June. At the same time the gasbags were given a complete overhaul, two of the engines were replaced by the adapted engines capable of running in reverse and most of the cover was replaced. The original cover was left in place between frames 3 and 5 and in two of the bays at the tail. These parts of the cover had had been doped after fitting and were therefore thought to be satisfactory, even though an inspection by McWade had found some areas where reinforcements had been stuck on with a rubber solution were seriously weakened: these areas were further reinforced, using dope as an adhesive.
A schedule was drawn up by the Air Ministry for R101 to undertake the flight to India in early October, in order that the flight would be made during the Imperial Conference which was to be held in London. The entire programme was intended to improve communication with the Empire, and it was hoped that the flight would generate favourable publicity for the airship programme. The final trial flight of R101 was originally scheduled for 26 September 1930, but high winds delayed the move from the shed until 1 October. That evening, it slipped the mast for its only trial flight before setting off for India. This lasted 16 hours 51 minutes and was undertaken under near ideal weather conditions, and because of the failure of the oil cooler in one engine, it was not possible to carry out full speed trials.[16] The flight was curtailed because of the need to prepare the airship for the flight to India. Despite the lack of full endurance and speed trials and the fact that a proper investigation of the aerodynamic consequences of the extension had not been fully completed a Certificate of Airworthiness was issued on 2 October, the Inspectorate expressing their complete satisfaction with the condition of the R101 and the standards to which the remedial work had been carried out. The actual certificate was handed over to Captain Irwin only on the day of her flight to India.[17]
R101 departed from Cardington on the evening of 4 October for its intended destination of Karachi (then part of British India) via a refuelling stop at Ismaïlia in Egypt under the command of Flight Lieutenant Carmichael Irwin. Among the 12 passengers were Lord Thomson, Secretary of State for Air, Sir Sefton Brancker, Director of Civil Aviation, Squadron Leader William Palstra, RAAF air liaison officer (ALO) to the British Air Ministry and both Lt. Col. V. C. Richmond and Sqd Ldr. F. M. Rope.[18]
The weather forecast on the morning of 4 October was generally favourable, predicting south to south-westerly winds of between 20 and 30 mph (32 and 48 kph) at 2,000 ft (610 m) over northern France, with conditions improving over southern France and the Mediterranean Sea. Although the mid-day forecast indicated some deterioration in the situation, this was not considered to be alarming enough to cancel the planned voyage. A course was planned which would take R101 over London, Paris and Toulouse, crossing the French coast near Narbonne.
Fine rain was beginning to fall when at dusk, with all the crew and passengers aboard, the R101 readied for departure. Under the illuminating spotlights, the jettisoning of water ballast to bring the airship into trim was clearly visible. Squadron Leader Booth, the commander of R100, who was observing the departure from the tower's observation gallery, estimated that two tons had been discharged from the nose and a further ton from the midships tanks. R101 cast off from the mast at 18:36 GMT to a cheer from the crowd that had gathered to witness the event, gently backed from the tower and, as another ton of ballast was shed, the engines were opened up to about half power, and the airship slowly began to climb away.
At about 19:06 the duty engineer in the aft engine car reported an apparent oil pressure problem. At 19:16 he shut the engine down, and after a short discussion with the Chief engineer, a decision was taken to replace the oil gauge, there being nothing apparently wrong with the engine. This work was put in hand, and the engine eventually restarted at 22:56, by which time R101 was over the English Channel. With one engine stopped airspeed was reduced by around 4 mph to 58.7 mph.
At 19:19, having flown 29 ½ miles but now only eight miles from Cardington, a course was set for London. With one engine stopped, its ground speed was about 40 mph. At 20:01, R101, by now over Potters Bar, made its second report to Cardington, confirming the intention to proceed via London, Paris and Narbonne, but making no mention of the engine problem. By that point, the weather had deteriorated, and it was raining heavily. Flying around 800 ft (240 m) above the ground, it passed over Alexandra Palace before changing course slightly at the landmark clock tower of the Metropolitan Cattle Market north of Islington, and thence over Shoreditch to cross the Thames in the vicinity of the Isle of Dogs, passing over the Royal Naval College at Greenwich at 20:28. The airship’s progress, flying with her nose pointing some 30 degrees to the right of its track, was observed by many who braved the rain to watch it pass overhead.
An update of the meteorological situation was received at 20:40. The forecast had deteriorated severely, south-westerly winds of up to 50 mph (80 km/h) with low cloud and rain being predicted for northern France, and similar conditions over central France. That this caused concern on board is demonstrated by the request for more detailed information transmitted at 21:19, by which time R101 was near Hawkhurst in Kent. It is possible that an alternative course was being considered. At 21:35 R101 crossed the English coast near Hastings and at 21:40 transmitted a progress report back to Cardington, mentioning that recovery of rainwater into the ballast tanks was taking place but again not reporting the engine problem. At 22:56 the aft engine was restarted. By now the wind had risen to about 44 mph (71 km/h) with strong gusts, but a further meteorological report received shortly after the airship had crossed the coast had been encouraging about weather conditions south of Paris.
Over France, R101 passed close to Beauvais ridge at a height estimated at 800 ft (240 m) above the ground. At about 02:07 R101 went into a dive from which she slowly recovered, probably losing around 450 ft (140 m). As it did so Rigger S. Church, who was returning to the crew quarters to come off duty, was sent forward to release the forward emergency ballast bags,[16] which were locally controlled. This first dive was steep enough to cause A.H. Leech, Foreman Engineer from Cardington, to be thrown from his seat in the smoking room and to wake Chief Electrician Arthur Disley, who was dozing in the switch room next to the chart cabin. As the ship recovered Disley was roused by the Chief Coxswain, G. W. Hunt, who then went to the crew quarters, calling out "We're down, lads" in warning. As this happened the airship went into a second dive and orders to reduce speed to slow (450 rpm) were received in the engine cars: before Engineer A.J Cook, on duty in the left-hand midships engine car could respond the airship hit the ground. The reason for the order to reduce speed is a matter for conjecture because the reduction of thrust would have caused the airship to lose dynamic lift and adopt a nose-down attitude. The subsequent Inquiry estimated the impact speed at some 13 mph (19 km),with the airship between 15° and 25° nose down.
A total of 46 of the 54 passengers and crew were killed immediately. Both Church and Rigger W.G Radcliffe survived the crash but later died in hospital in Beauvais, bringing the total of dead to 48.[16] The bodies were returned to England where they lay in state in Westminster Hall at the Palace of Westminster. After a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral on 11 October, the bodies were taken to Cardington village for burial in the cemetery of St Mary's church. A monument was later erected, and the scorched RAF ensign which R101 had flown on its tail is on display, along with a memorial tablet, in the church's nave.
The Court of Inquiry was led by the Liberal politician Sir John Simon, assisted by Lieutenant-Colonel John Moore-Brabazon and Professor C E Inglis. The Inquiry, held in public, opened on 28 October and spent 10 days taking evidence from witnesses, including Professor Leonard Bairstow and Dr. Hugo Eckener of the Zeppelin company, before adjourning in order to allow Bairstow and the NPL to perform more detailed calculations based on wind-tunnel tests on a specially made model of R101 in its final form. This evidence was presented over three days ending on 5 December 1930. The final report was presented on 27 March 1931.
The Inquiry examined most aspects of the design and construction of R101 in detail, with particular emphasis on the gasbags and the associated harnessing and valves, although very little examination of the problems that had been encountered with the cover were made. All the technical witnesses provided unhesitating endorsement of the airworthiness of the airship prior to its flight to India. An examination was also made of the various operational decisions that had been made before the airship undertook its final voyage.
The possibility of the crash having been the result of a prolonged loss of gas caused by leakage or loss through the valves was discounted since this explanation did not explain the airship's behaviour during its last moments: moreover the fact that the officers on duty had changed watch routinely implied that there had been no particular cause for alarm a few minutes before the crash. The recent change of watch was considered to be a possible contributory factor to the accident, since the new crew would not have had time to get the feel of the airship. It was also considered most unlikely that the accident had been solely caused by a sudden downdraught. A sudden and catastrophic failure was seen as the only explanation. The Inquiry discounted the possibility of structural failure of the airframe. The only major fracture found in the wreckage was at the rear of the new framework extension but it was considered that this had either occurred on impact or more probably been caused by the intense heat of the subsequent fire. The Inquiry came to the conclusion that a tear had probably developed in the forward cover, this in turn causing one or more of the forward gasbags to fail. Evidence presented by Professor Bairstow showed that this would cause the R101 to become too nose-heavy for the elevators to correct.[19]
The cause of the fire was not established. Several hydrogen airships had crashed in similar circumstances without catching fire. The inquiry thought that it was most probable that a spark from the ship's electrics had ignited escaping hydrogen, causing an explosion. Other suggestions put forward included the ignition of the calcium flares carried in the control car on contact with water,[20] electrostatic discharge or a fire in one of the engine cars, which carried petrol for the starter engines. All that is certain is that she caught fire almost at once and burned fiercely. In the extreme heat, the fuel oil from the wreck soaked into the ground and caught fire; it was still burning when the first party of officials arrived by air the next day.[21]
The Inquiry considered that it was "impossible to avoid the conclusion that the R101 would not have started for India on the evening of October 4th if it had not been that matters of public policy were considered as making it highly desirable that she should do so" but considered this to be the result of all concerned being eager to prove the worth of R101, rather than direct interference from above.
R101 was the end of British attempts to create lighter-than-air aircraft. Scrap contractors salvaged what they could of the wreckage, continuing through 1931. The Zeppelin Company purchased five tons of duralumin from the wreck.[16] Its competitor, R100, despite a more successful development programme and a satisfactory, although not trouble-free, transatlantic trial flight, was grounded immediately after R101 crashed. In 1931 the Imperial Airship scheme was abandoned, and R100 sold for scrap.
At the time, and even today, scholarly opinion about R101 varies from the best airship ever designed to an appallingly bad piece of engineering. Any controversy is due to a number of factors. At the time the entire airship programme was controversial, since large sums of public money were involved. The extremely poor relationship between the R100 team and both Cardington and the Air Ministry created a climate of resentment and jealousy which may have rankled. Neville Shute's autobiography was serialised by the Sunday Graphic on its publication in 1954,[22] and misleadingly promoted as containing sensational revelations, and Barnes Wallis later expressed scathing criticism of the design although these may in part reflect personal animosities. Nevertheless, his listing of Richmond's "overweening vanity" as a major cause of the debacle, and the fact that he himself had not designed it as another, says little for his objectivity.[23]
Although the design had some innovative features, and the workmanship was superb, the ship had basic flaws, only some of which were due to shortcomings in the design.[24]
General characteristics
Performance
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