|
R101 was one of a pair of British rigid airships 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〔("Keeping Pace With Aviation." ) ''Popular Science'', Volume 116, Issue 1, 1930, p. 41. ISSN 0161-7370.〕 at in length, and it was not surpassed by another hydrogen-filled rigid airship until the ''Hindenburg'' flew seven years later — the U.S. Navy's twin helium-filled rigids USS ''Akron'', which first flew in late September 1931, and USS ''Macon'' were each some 784 ft (239 m) long, each longer and with approximately one million cubic feet greater lifting gas capacity each, than the hydrogen-filled R101. After some trial flights, and subsequent modifications to increase lifting capacity which included lengthening the airship by ,〔("R101." ) ''Airship Heritage Trust'' via ''Airshipsonline.com.'' Retrieved: 23 July 2008.〕 it crashed on 5 October 1930 in France during its maiden overseas voyage, killing 48 of the 54 people on board.〔''Report of the R101 Inquiry'' 1931, p. 7.〕 Among the deceased passengers were Lord Thomson, the Air Minister who had initiated the programme, senior government officials, and almost all the dirigible's designers from the Royal Airship Works. The crash of R101 effectively ended British airship development, and was one of the worst airship accidents of the 1930s. The loss of life was more than the 35 killed in the highly public ''Hindenburg'' disaster of 1937, though fewer than the 52 killed in the French military ''Dixmude'' in 1923, and 73 killed when the USS ''Akron'' broke up over sea in 1933. ==Background== (詳細はBritain to the most distant parts of the British Empire, including India, Australia and Canada, since these distances were too great for heavier-than-air aircraft of the period. The Burney Scheme of 1922 had proposed a civil airship development programme to be 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.〔Masefield 1982, p. 30.〕 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 a Vickers subsidiary, the Airship Guarantee Company, under a fixed price contract. This led to the nicknames the "Socialist Airship" and the "Capitalist Airship".〔''"One, the so-called 'capitislist' airship, was a private venture titled R100, and the other. the so-called 'socialist' airship, was state funded and titled the R101"'', Ian Philpott, Preface of "The Royal Air Force - Volume 2: An Encyclopedia of the Inter-War Years 1930-1939"〕〔(''"Britain's airship programme began after the First World War on the initiative of the Conservative Air Minister, Sir Samuel Hoare. In 1924 the programme was taken up with enthusiasm by the Labour Minister, Lord Thomson, who, like Hoare, saw airships as the way to modernise communications with India. Thomson launched the construction of the State-funded R101. It was dubbed the 'socialist' airship by the popular press..."'' ), Nick le Neve Walmsley, "R101: a pictorial history"〕 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, Ismailia, Karachi and Montreal had to be designed and built and the meteorological forecasting network extended and improved.〔Sprigg 1931, p. 128.〕 Specifications for the airships were drawn up by an Air Ministry committee whose members included Squadron Leader Reginald Colmore and Lieutenant-Colonel Vincent Richmond,〔Masefield 1982, p. 454.〕 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 and maximum speed of was called for.〔''Report of the R101 Inquiry'' 1931, p. 14.〕 In wartime, the airships would be expected to carry 200 troops or possibly five parasite fighter aircraft. Vickers' design team was led by Barnes Wallis, who had extensive experience of rigid airship design and later became famous for the geodetic framework of the Wellington bomber and the bouncing bomb. His principal assistant (the "Chief Calculator"), Nevil Shute Norway, later well known as the novelist Nevil 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, but one purpose of having two design teams was to test different approaches, with R101 deliberately intended to extend the limits of existing technology.〔Masefield 1982, p. 111.〕 Shute later admitted that many of his criticisms of the R101 team were unjustified.〔Masefield 1982, pp. 204–205, fn.〕 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.〔Masefield 1982, p. 51.〕 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「R101」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|