The Story of R100 and R101 I - The Imperial Airship Scheme
The conquest of the air will prove, ultimately, will prove to be man's greatest and most glorious triumph. What railways have done for nations, airways will do for the world. - Claude Grahame-White, The Aeroplane, 1914 Longtime readers of this thread will be unsurprised to learn that I've spent literally some time thinking about the trends that lead to airships falling out of use. Some of these you are no doubt familiar with (viz. the incredible advances in aviation made during World War 2, the enormous civil engineering project of building modern airports around the world thanks to World War 2, hydrogen being dangerously flammable when mixed with air, etc.) I came across a new idea while researching this new infodump, from a British aviation writer in 1929: "Airships breed like elephants, airplanes breed like mice." This is true. Rigid airships need to be very large to justify themselves over other Lighter Than Air (LTA) designs, which meant that getting into ...