Britain Built Two Giant Airships. Why Did Only One Come Home?

In 1930 Britain had two giant airships, built to the same requirements: R100 by a private company, R101 by the state. One flew to Canada and back. The other crashed in France on her way to India. We read the 1931 Court of Inquiry report, the aviation press of 1929-30 and the debates in Parliament to test the easy answer: that the private ship worked and the government's didn't. CHAPTERS 0:00 Two ships, one came home 1:49 1924: Why build two airships? 4:54 1924–1929: What did each team build? 8:23 1929–1930: Which ship was in trouble first? 11:59 July–August 1930: What happened over Canada? 14:57 October 1930: Why did R101 leave on the fourth? 18:05 1931: What did the Inquiry find? 20:57 1931–1932: So was it private against public? SOURCES Report of the R.101 Inquiry (Cmd. 3825, HMSO, 1931): HathiTrust https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i... · as printed in Flight, 3 Apr 1931: https://archive.org/details/sim_fligh... · The Irish Times (from The Times), 1 Apr 1931: https://archive.org/details/per_irish... · The Engineer, 3 Apr 1931: https://archive.org/details/sim_engin... Hansard: HC Deb 14 May 1924 (vol 173); HL Deb 21 May 1924 (vol 57); HC 5 Feb, 28 May, 5 Nov 1930; HC 14 May, 25 Nov 1931; HC 10 Mar 1932: https://api.parliament.uk/historic-ha... Flight, Oct 1929 - Nov 1930 (archive.org sim_flight-international_1929-1930) Illustrated London News, 12 and 19 Oct 1929, 16 Aug, 11 and 18 Oct 1930 (archive.org) Edmonton Bulletin, 7 Oct 1930, p.1 (Greenwood recalling Thomson); RUSI Journal, May 1931 Background: B. Holman, 'The end of ideology (in rigid airship nomenclature)', Airminded (2023); P. Masefield, To Ride the Storm (1982); N. Shute, Slide Rule (1954) IMAGES (all public domain or CC0; each is credited on screen; full list in the pinned comment) Flight (1929-30) and The Illustrated London News (1929-30), Internet Archive scans; Library of Congress (Bain News Service); Hansard (UK Parliament, Open Parliament Licence) Music: "Singularity" and "False Vacuum Decay" by The Grey Room / Density & Time (YouTube Audio Library; no attribution required) ABOUT THIS VIDEO Archival images are public domain or used under the licences listed above. Builder's Plate tells the stories of the forgotten machines, materials, methods and people that built the modern world, from the original drawings, patents and reports. Spotted an error? Leave a comment with a source and we will pin the correction. #R101 #EngineeringHistory #AviationHistory