Hindenburg WAS NOT the DЕАDLIEST airship accident: Forgotten British Giant R.101

october 4th 1930 the crew of the british airship r101 was finishing the final preparations before the departure on its maiden flight r101 the largest airship ever built at the time was going to british india after the most important passenger the air minister lord thompson had stepped on board the huge airship unmoved from the tower and slowly lifted into the sky r101 was the first step in britain's grand plan to build a fleet of giant airships that would connect the metropole with the most distant parts of the colossal british empire britain which ruled the waves now wanted to rule the skies but just a few hours after the departure the only thing that remained from ambitious imperial plans was the smoking airship frame laying on the ground the r101 disaster the deadliest in the history of commercial airships became a striking and at the same time tragic example of the consequences stemming from a dangerous intertwining web of political ambitions and engineering mistakes nowadays cargo and passenger air transportation completely belong to airplanes but if you look at this picture from 1926 showing how london was imagined in 100 years in addition to airplanes in the sky above the city we also see huge airships and it's worth mentioning that 100 years ago there was a good reason for such a vision in the early period of aviation development the airplanes had to hold an intense fight for their place in the sky was the giant airships and perhaps it is hard to believe from the standpoint of today but the outcome of that battle was not yet clearly determined world war one became a powerful push for aviation development in particular the construction of airships huge german zeppelins dropping bombs on london are perhaps one of the most recognizable images of that war but what is interesting is that the direction for the postwar development of airships was largely based on completely different less known airships achievements on november 21 1917 the german zeppelin l59 loaded with weapons ammunition and medical supplies took off from bulgaria and headed southward to the beleaguered garrison in german east africa the airship crossed the mediterranean sea then sahara and was already deep into the african continent when they received the message that the situation at its destination point had changed and they were ordered to return to base although the mission was not successful the l59's accomplishment was staggering carrying on board 15 tons of cargo the airship managed to cover a distance of 6800 kilometers quantities that were simply unimaginable for airplanes of the time l59 was in the air non-stop for 95 hours a record that remains undefeated even to this day the l-59 flight is still considered the longest non-stop combat flight in history therefore in matters of cargo and passenger transportation this stake on airships seemed to be quite reasonable and logical commercial airplanes of the time didn't have sufficient payload and their shaky passenger cabins filled with engine exhaust fumes provided passengers with only minimal comfort and for long distance flights we also need to add frequent stops along the route for aircraft refueling and rest for the crew meanwhile the airship could offer passengers a comparable in comfort to an ocean liner but the travel time in comparison with the ships was reduced by several times when it came to the interest in airships britain was no exception since the matter of communication between the metropole and empire's far-flung corners has always been critically important moreover the british government was seriously determined to become the world leader in building large airships in the same way that the british dreadnoughts were ruling the seas the british airships were meant to rule these guys in 1924 britain launched a so-called imperial airship scheme a grand project that was designed to link the metropole with australia canada south africa and india by means of the fleet of airships in the commercial service along imperial airports the plan involves the construction of at least six giant airships as well as building a network of docking stations in the key cities of the british empire such as ottawa cape town cairo mumbasa karachi and melbourne to start this program the british government decided to build the first two rigid airships which were supposed to serve as prototypes for further airship models it is worth mentioning here that the previous attempts of the british military to construct rigid airships were not completely failures but couldn't be called successful either therefore there was a strong public opinion at the time that this type of work should be done by private companies instead but in 1924 the prime minister became ramsey mcdonald who was the first prime minister in the history of the united kingdom that belonged to the labour party and strongly believed that effective results could only be achieved under government control based on the recommendation of the newly appointed secretary of state for heir lord thompson who was a big supporter of airships the new government approved the launch of the imperial airship scheme but in a slightly unusual way after long debates and discussions it was decided that the government would fund the construction of two airships but one of them would be designed and built by a private contractor while the other one would be built by the government's royal airship works it was believed that the competition between the two teams would promote and encourage innovations which in turn would ensure the overall success of the imperial airship program the team whose airship proved to be more successful would then be granted a contract to build the remaining four airships that were planned under the imperial program the development of giant airships and the competition between the two teams raised huge public interest in the country the media regularly published the news rumors and work progress of the rival parties which received joking names such as capitalists for the airship being designed by a private company and socialists for the one that was being built by the state both the private airship which received the designation r100 and the state's airship r101 were of a rigid type unlike balloons and blimps in which the shape of the gas envelope is maintained by the pressure of the lifting gas itself the shape of the rigid airship such as r101 is formed by a metal frame the inside of the framework contains the balloons or gas bags filled with hydrogen that provide the lifting power on the outside these bags are covered by a cloth skin stretched on the frame the main purpose of which is to provide the airship with an aerodynamic shape as well as to protect the gas bags from wind sun rain and other harsh weather conditions all those features provide the aircraft with higher speeds and payloads compared to non-rigid airships but at the same time this type was much more difficult to build and the construction of these airships required huge efforts perhaps this was best reflected in the production technology of gas bags the r101 frame housed 15 giant hydrogen filled gas bags with a total volume of 140 000 cubic meters enough to lift about 170 tons into the air to construct these gas bags engineers were looking for a material that would not only be able to contain hydrogen but at the same time would be lightweight and flexible yet durable they tried using rubber and biscuits but the early version of these materials would often receive small cracks that eventually led to gas leaks therefore british engineers decided to use a traditional and time-tested material oxen more specifically deoxy intestine called decicum which was thin flexible and at the same time could hold the hydrogen quite well if you hate your job then compare it with the work of the women who were making gas backs at the royal airshop works in a room filled with the smell of rotting meat they would soak the intestines for hours then scrape of lumps of fat was a knife after which they would leave the intestines to soak overnight and in the morning they would scrape off the fat again when ready small pieces of intestines were glued together until one large sheet was made large enough to make a gas back to at least roughly understand the extent of this work imagine how many entrails are needed for one gas back the sikum of an ox has an average size of 15 by 75 centimeters which is just a bit more than one tenth of a square meter meanwhile the total area of the unfolded gasback was almost 3 000 square meters thus on average the women needed to glue about 50 to 60 000 intestines together to create one double walled gas bag which could hold over 10 000 cubic meters of hydrogen the total cost of such a gas bag was 10 times higher than the average cost of house in the london suburbs in comparison to helium the choice of flammable hydrogen to fill the gas bags at first glance may seem like a poor decision and earth helium is not dangerous but its lifting power is seven percent less than that of hydrogen it might seem like seven percent is not much of a cause for safety but for commercial airships hydrogen was the most proper if not the only choice hydrogen allowed for the construction of lighter and thus less expensive airships and here's why let's compare the lifting power of an airship using r101 as an example filled with helium and hydrogen the r101 frame was able to carry about 140 000 cubic meters of gas which provided a lifting power of slightly more than 177 tons for hydrogen and for helium in turn 93 of that number would be about 165 tons but this is for pure hydrogen and pure helium in real life the purity was less than 100 especially for helium which means that you lose several tons and lifting power and that means that helium lifted only 88 of the weight lifted by hydrogen now let's calculate the payload the airship frame weighted 113 tons the crew fuel and other necessary materials required for the flight took up another 44 tons thus in the case of hydrogen this left about 13 tons of palette available that could be used for passengers their luggage and other freight all those things that make an airship commercially viable meanwhile for helium this number is going to be negative 7 tons which meant that the airship could not carry the useful load in fact in this particular example the airship could not even lift its crew and fuel on top of that helium was crazy expensive about 70 times more expensive than hydrogen at the beginning of the last century helium was mined in the united states only after which it had to be shipped to final customers let's say to great britain meanwhile hydrogen was quite easy and relatively cheap to produce that is why hydrogen despite all its fire and explosion hazards was widely used in airship construction in most countries at the time after the hydrogen lifted r101 into the sky the airship usually flew at an altitude of about 500 meters at a speed of just about 100 kilometers per hour the airship was driven by five diesel engines by the way the decision to employ diesel engines was made for safety reasons and was one of the many innovations on the r101 however japanese had the consequences of this decision turned out to be more negative unlike what was anticipated the actual engines turned out to be less powerful and much heavier as a result instead of the original intent to use 6 only 5 engines were installed on the airship and still their total weight exceeded the anticipated weight by more than 5 tons the engines were housed in cars underneath the airship two in the front two in the central part and one in the rear each engine was operated by an engineer who worked directly next to the engine and received commands from the control car just like on the c ship the working conditions of engineers were far from comfortable in this picture from the popular magazine the engineer's workplace may seem quite spacious but in reality the engineer could not even stand up to full height the student person on this photo gives a real idea of how much space was available to an engineer in the car the central part of the car was used for the engine itself and all that remained for the engineer was just a little space on the sides of the engine imagine what it was like working several hours hunched over for most of the time and all that close to a 600 horsepower roaring diesel engine originally intended for railroad use add to this the indescribable pleasure of starting or ending your worksheet was climbing back to the airship using an ordinary ladder i'm sure the sights of the landscapes from above were magnificent but this had barely compensated for the difficult working conditions as a part of the imperial airship scheme in addition to the airships themselves the necessary infrastructure was also designed and built for example unlike the german zeppelins which boarded passengers from the ground british engineers designed a mooring tower believing it was much safer this way for the airships of that size and it was not just a lonely standing tower by itself but a huge infrastructure object which among other things included a huge reservoir with water enormous fuel tanks hidden underground that were filled by hydrogen supplied by underground pipes directly from the plant located nearby the hydrogen then was pumped into the airship tanks using a powerful pumping station located here as well to get on board the airship passengers would take an elevator to the very top of the mooring tower where they would enjoy a stunning view from a height of about a 20 floor building passengers boarded the airship itself through a small and flexible bridge which for safety of passengers was prudently equipped with handrails as well as small wheels at the bottom which in the case of the strong wind allowed the bridge to spin with the airship around the tower without interrupting the boarding process it is also worth mentioning here one very significant innovation which was first used when building the r101 unlike for instance the famous german grabbed zeppelin on which passengers and crew were placed in a car hunt under the airship on r101 the outer car was intended only for the crew meanwhile the passenger recommendations were contained inside the body of the airship therefore again in comparison with grav zeppelin where the crew and 24 passengers were traveling in a long and narrow gondola the r101's 42 crew members and 50 passengers had two spacious decks available at their disposal on the lower deck there were mainly various technical and staff rooms and the upper deck was intended for passengers here there were cabins for one two or four passengers available for accommodation as well as a dining room for 60 people it is worth noting that on r101 the guest service was provided at the highest possible level comparable to the best london hotels and restaurants of the time that are related to all personnel including well-trained weight and kitchen staff after a lavish dinner usually consisting of seven meals guests could smoke a cigar or pipe in the smoking room for 20 people the walls floor and ceiling of beach were carefully finished with fireproof asbestos because above the heads of the smokers there were still gigantic gas bags filled with flammable hydrogen the guests also had a spacious and large the size of tennis court lounge at their disposal in the daytime you could spend time here reading the newspaper or chatting with other passengers and in the evening you can enjoy the air travel to the sounds of the foxtrot or viennese walls on both sides of the lounge there were two spacious prominent decks here through large windows set at an angle of 45 degrees passengers could enjoy magnificent panoramic views on their way from london to karachi and back the route which according to the imperial airship scheme the r101 was supposed to fly along but after making some calculations it suddenly turned out that r101 was not able to complete such a trip the r101 made its first test flight on october 14 1929 two months earlier than its rival r100 even though both airships may seem to look quite similar to each other the capitalist r100 in comparison to its socialist twin was more conservative from a technological standpoint and for the most part its engineers used proven technologies when building r100 largely due to that the capitalist r 100 completed its trial flights earlier than r101 and in july 1930 set off on its maiden trip to canada the transatlantic flight lasted only 78 hours and overall was quite successful this socialist pass turned out to be somewhat more complicated one of the reasons in particular was that starting from the second test flight the air minister lord thompson began to invite all sorts of politicians journalists and other important guests to fly and dine on board the airship multiple articles full of excitement that would appear after such flights of course contributed to the growth of the socialist project popularity but at the same time did not help the normal progress of the trials by any means even worse the first flights made it clear that the airship turned out to be too heavy and the actual characteristics of r101 turned out to be much lower than anticipated part of the reason was that the r101 engineers moved away from traditional airship principles and time-tested designs from german zeppelins for instance the frame of the airship graph zeppelin consisted of several lightweight and relatively flexible circular rings the strength of the structure was achieved by a metal wire stiffened inside the ring similar to spokes on a bicycle wheel meanwhile in the design of r101 the wires were removed and the rings were made thicker to maintain strength this made the airship frame heavier and also reduced the internal volume available for placing gas bags which in turn reduced the overall lifting power of the airship since part of the r101's route was flying over the deserts where the air was thinner based on calculations it would lose about 11 tons in lift this engineer miscalculation made the r101 flight to karachi and back impossible but the problem was that on the government level the flight to karachi had already been scheduled and timed to occur before the upcoming imperial conference in london to postpone or cancel the r101 flight especially in the light of the successful transatlantic flight of the rival r100 to canada meant a huge blow to the prestige of the government and the air minister in particular who staked his reputation on the success of their r101 the existing situation was such that the flight to karachi had to be made no matter what in this situation the r101 engineers came up with it daring and i would even say audacious decision in this picture you can see the result of their solution at the top is the r101 on june 30s and on the bottom six weeks later in august the r101 has been lengthened by 14 meters no r101 engineers didn't use one of those emails in your spam box promising to enlarge your airship what they did was cut the airship frame in half and insert an additional section with a gas back thus increasing the overall lift less than two months after that despite the lack of trial flights for speed and structural tests on october 2nd 1930 the r101 airship was issued a certificate of error worseness which in particular was required for international flights carmichael irving the captain of the r101 airship received the certificate on october 4th just a few hours before the departure to karachi on a rainy evening of october 4th 1930 in the small town of cardington the airship r101 took off in the air at the time it was the largest airship in the world ever built onboard the aircraft heading to british india were 42 crew members and 12 guests including britain's air minister lord thompson director of civil aviation sir sefton banker director of airship development reginald kolmer chief designer of r101 lieutenant colonel vincent richmond as well as his deputy representatives of the australian and indian air forces and other noble guests despite the weather conditions getting worse the airship did not return r101 successfully crossed the english channel but then near the small french town of bouvez 70 kilometers from paris tragedy struck according to the results of an official investigation it is believed that a strong wind gust tore back the nose area's outer covering exposing and rupturing the foremost gas back and resulting in a rapid loss of lift the airship made a sudden steep dive and began to lose altitude but the crew managed to level up the ship only for a moment though the captain ordered to turn off the engines but the airship went into his second dive and at 2 am at an angle of about 18 degrees it crashed into a hill the impact actually wasn't very strong the speed of the airship at the moment of collision with the ground was around 20 kilometers per hour normally even bicycles can ride at higher speeds but the impact caused a small fire maybe a spark from the airship's electric wiring maybe the heat of the engines or one of the signal flares in the control car but fire had ignited leaking hydrogen causing an instant explosion and in just a few seconds the giant airship was completely destroyed all that was left from the once majestic machine built to become the symbol of the british empire aeropower was a smoking metal frame out of 54 people on board r101 48 died as a result of the crash including secretary of state for heir lord thompson the r101 tragedy became one of the biggest airship disasters in the entire history of aviation and the deadliest among civil airships for the british public the r101 disaster was a huge shock comparable and strength only to the sinking of the titanic the effect of the tragedy was so strong that the imperial airship building program was eventually cancelled the remaining twin r-100 despite its successful flights across the atlantic was soon cut in pieces and sold for scrap after the disaster at brewer britain hasn't built not only large airships but any airships at all and that's how the age of airships ended for britain it is difficult to point out one single reason that led to the r101 disaster for example nasa studied the r101 case in particular is an example of the potential consequences of the government attempts to excessively push the process of innovations as a result of political pressure road technologies are being introduced too fast and in large quantities which being combined with other factors eventually can lead to catastrophic consequences although looking at the causes of some air disasters that followed it seems that no lessons have been learned from the r101 tragedy what is interesting is that the story of the r101 didn't end with the crash and in a sense the airship flew again the r101 frame which was lying on a hill near a french town was cut into pieces and sent back to england where the parts of r101 were melted down into scrap metal five tons of this metal was bought by the german company zeppelin which then used it in the construction of the airship lz129 better known in history as the hindenburg this mind-blowing fact and many other ones from the r101 history that i've learned come from the amazing book fatal flight the true story of britain's last great airship by bill hammack if you want to learn more about r101 you can buy the book or you can enjoy a free audio version that was made available by the author himself and i highly recommend you check out the links in the description to support bill hammack's educational work if you enjoyed this video hit the like button to support new episodes on this channel thanks for watching and see you in the next video goodbye you

Channel: Paper Skies

Views: 193,407

Rating: 4.9260149 out of 5

Keywords: aviation, history, aviation history, paper skies, history of aviation, airship, r101, british airship, hindenburg disaster, hindenburg accident, hindenburg airship, zeppelin, german zeppelins

Id: 4b3TrILxHJo

Length: 23min 23sec (1403 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Spooky_ShadowMan]

Iron maiden have a great song about this

Note its like 18 minutes long

https://youtu.be/9CWTig2kBKE