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=                           R34 (airship)                            =
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                             Introduction                             
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The R.33 class of British rigid airships were built for the Royal
Naval Air Service during the First World War, but were not completed
until after the end of hostilities, by which time the RNAS had become
part of the Royal Air Force. The lead ship, R.33, served successfully
for ten years and survived one of the most alarming and heroic
incidents in airship history when she was torn from her mooring mast
in a gale. She was called a "Pulham Pig" by the locals, as the blimps
based there had been, and is immortalised in the village sign for
Pulham St Mary. The only other airship in the class, R.34, became the
first aircraft to make an east to west transatlantic flight in July
1919 and, with the return flight, made the first two-way crossing. It
was decommissioned two years later, after being damaged during a
storm. The crew nicknamed her "Tiny".


                        Design and development                        
======================================================================
Substantially larger than the preceding R31 class, the R.33 class was
in the design stage in 1916 when the German Zeppelin LZ 76 (L 33) was
brought down on English soil. Despite the efforts of the crew to set
it on fire, it was captured nearly intact, with engines in working
order. For five months, the LZ 76 was carefully examined in order to
discover the Germans' secrets.

The existing design was adapted to produce a new airship based on the
German craft and two examples were ordered, one (R.33) to be
constructed by Armstrong-Whitworth at Barlow, North Yorkshire, and the
other (R.34) by William Beardmore and Company in Inchinnan,
Renfrewshire, Scotland. Assembly began in 1918. The R.33 class was
semi-streamlined fore and aft, the middle section being
straight-sided. The control car was well forward on the ship, with the
aft section containing an engine in a separate structure to stop
vibrations affecting the sensitive radio direction finding and
communication equipment. The small gap was faired over, so the gondola
seemed to be a single structure. It was powered by five 275 hp Sunbeam
Maori engines, with one in the aft section of the control car, two
more in a pair of power cars amidships each driving a pusher propeller
via a reversing gearbox for manoeuvering while mooring, and the
remaining two in a centrally mounted aft car, geared together to drive
a single pusher propeller.


 R.33 
======
R.33 first flew on 6 March 1919, and was sent to RAF Pulham in
Norfolk. Between then and 14 October, R.33 made 23 flights totalling
337 hours flying time. One of these, a flight promoting "Victory
Bonds" even included a brass band playing in the top machine gun post.

The R.33 was "demilitarised" in 1920 and given over to civilian work
with the civil registration 'G-FAAG'. This work consisted of trials of
new mast mooring techniques using the mast erected at Pulham. On one
occasion winds of 80 mph were successfully withstood while moored.
Another experiment was an ascent carrying a pilotless Sopwith Camel
which was successfully launched over the Yorkshire Moors. After an
overhaul, R33 was based at Croydon Airport, moored to a portable mast.
In June 1921 it was used by the Metropolitan Police to observe traffic
at The Derby, and in July she appeared in the Hendon Air Pageant
before flying to Cardington, Bedfordshire, where she was laid up for
three years.

On 31 May 1921 the British government cancelled all airship
development for financial reasons. Military airships were scrapped,
but as a civilian airship R.33 was mothballed instead. In 1925, after
being inactive for nearly four years, the reconditioned R.33 emerged
from her shed at Cardington.

At 09:50 on 16 April 1925 the R.33 was torn from the mast at Pulham
during a gale and was carried away with only a partial crew of 20 men
on board. Her nose partially collapsed and the first gas cell deflated
leaving her low in the bow. The crew on board started the engines,
gaining some height, and rigged a cover for the bow section, but the
R.33 was blown out over the North Sea. A Royal Navy vessel was readied
and left the nearby port of Lowestoft in case the R.33 came down in
the sea. The local lifeboat was launched, but was driven back by the
weather conditions.

Some five hours after the initial break from the mast, R.33 was under
control but still being blown towards the Continent. As she approached
the Dutch coast R.33 was given the option of landing at De Kooy, where
a party of 300 men was standing by. Late in the evening R.33 was able
to hold her position over the Dutch coast, hovering there until 5
o'clock the next morning. She was then able to slowly make her way
back home, arriving at the Suffolk coast eight hours later and
reaching Pulham at 13:50 hrs, where she was put into the shed
alongside the R.36.

For their actions the airship's first officer, who had been in
command, Lieutenant Ralph Booth was awarded the Air Force Cross, the
coxswain, Flight-Sergeant "Sky" Hunt, was awarded the Air Force Medal,
four other crew members were awarded the British Empire Medal and the
other crew members were presented with inscribed watches.

In October 1925, following repairs, she was used for experiments to
provide data for the construction of the R101 airship. Once these were
finished, in mid-October, she was used for trials launching a parasite
fighter, using a DH 53 Hummingbird light aircraft. After some near
misses, a successful launch and recapture was achieved in December of
that year. In 1926, she launched a pair of Gloster Grebes weighing
about a ton apiece, the first of which was flown by Flying Officer
Campbell MacKenzie-Richards. She was then retired and remained in the
shed at Pulham until finally being scrapped in 1928, after severe
metal fatigue was found in her frame. The forward portion of R.33's
control car is currently on display at the RAF Museum at Hendon.


 R.34 
======
R.34 made her first flight on 14 March 1919 and was delivered to her
service base at RAF East Fortune near Edinburgh on 29 May after a
21-hour flight from Inchinnan. R.34 had set out the previous evening,
but thick fog made navigation difficult, and after spending the night
over the North Sea the airship was unable to moor in the morning due
to fog. After cruising as far south as Yorkshire R.34 returned to East
Fortune to dock at about 3 p.m. The airship made her first endurance
trip of 56 hours over the Baltic from 17 to 20 June.

It was then decided to attempt the first return Atlantic crossing,
under the command of Major George Scott. R.34 had never been intended
as a passenger airship and extra sleeping accommodation for the crew
was arranged by slinging hammocks along the keel walkway. A metal
plate was welded to an engine exhaust pipe to allow for the
preparation of hot food.

The crew included Brigadier-General Edward Maitland and Zachary
Lansdowne as the representative of the US Navy. William Ballantyne,
one of the crew members scheduled to stay behind to save weight,
stowed away with the crew's mascot, a small tabby kitten called
"Wopsie"; they emerged at 2.00 p.m. on the first day, too late to be
dropped off.


R.34 left East Fortune, Scotland, on 2 July 1919 and arrived at
Mineola, Long Island, United States, on 6 July after a flight of 108
hours, with only a few gallons of fuel remaining. As the landing party
had no experience of handling large rigid airships, Major E. M.
Pritchard jumped by parachute and so became the first person to reach
American soil by air from Europe. This was the first East-West aerial
crossing of the Atlantic and was achieved weeks after the first
transatlantic aeroplane flight by British aviators Captain John Alcock
and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown in a modified First World War
Vickers Vimy. The return journey to RNAS Pulham took place from 10 to
13 July and took 75 hours. Returned to East Fortune for a refit, R.34
then flew to Howden, East Yorkshire, for crew training.

On 27 January 1921 R.34 set off on what should have been a routine
exercise. Over the North Sea the weather worsened and a recall signal
sent by radio was not received. Following a navigational error the
craft flew into a hillside on the North Yorkshire Moors during the
night, and the ship lost two propellers. She went back out to sea
using the two remaining engines and in daylight followed the Humber
Estuary back to Howden. Strong winds made it impossible to get her
back into the shed, and she was tied down outside for the night. By
the morning further damage had occurred and R.34 was written off and
scrapped.


                              Operators                               
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*Royal Navy (to 1918)
*Royal Air Force (from 1918)


                               See also                               
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*
*Walter Wellman


                             Bibliography                             
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* Abbott, Patrick. 'Airship the Story of R.34 and the First East-West
Crossing of the Atlantic By Air'. Encore Editions, 1977. .
*
* Griehl, Manfred and Dressel, Joachim. 'Zeppelin! The German Airship
Story'. London, Arms and Armour Press, 1990. .
* Higham, Robin. 'The British Rigid Airship 1908-1931'.
Henley-on-Thames: Foulis, 1961.
* Maitland, E.M. 'The Log of HMA R34 - Journey to America and Back'.
Centenary Edition, Pennoyer Centre, 2019. .
* Mowthorpe, Ces. 'Battlebags: British Airships of the First World
War'. 1995. .
* Rosie, George. 'Flight of the Titan: The Story of the R34'. Birlinn
Ltd, 2010. .
* Venty, Arthur Frederick and Eugene M. Kolesnik. 'Airship Saga: The
History of Airships Seen Through the Eyes of the Men Who Designed,
Built, and Flew Them'. Poole, Dorset, UK: Blandford Press, 1982. .
* Venty, Arthur Frederick and Eugene M. Kolesnik.
[https://books.google.com/books?id=NpdTAAAAMAAJ 'Jane's Pocket Book of
Airships']. New York: Collier Books, 1976. .


                            External links                            
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* [http://www.airshipsonline.com/airships/r33/index.html Airship
Heritage Trust R33 Page]
* [http://www.airshipsonline.com/airships/r34/index.html R34 - The
Record Breaker - The Airship Heritage Trust]
*
[http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1919/1919%20-%200942.html
The Return Voyage of R 34] 'Flight' 17 July 1919.
* [http://pennoyers.org.uk/airships.html Airships at Pulham]


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