His Majesty's Airship
The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine
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His Majesty's Airship
Narrated by:
Nicholas Boulton
Buy Now for €17.99
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Narrated by:
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Nicholas Boulton
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By:
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S. C. Gwynne
Summary
The tragic fate of the British airship R101—which went down in a spectacular fireball in 1930, killing more people than died in the Hindenburg disaster seven years later—has been largely forgotten. In His Majesty’s Airship, S.C. Gwynne resurrects it in vivid detail, telling the epic story of great ambition gone terribly wrong.
Airships, those airborne leviathans that occupied center stage in the world in the first half of the 20th century, were a symbol of the future. R101 was not just the largest aircraft ever to have flown and the product of the world’s most advanced engineering—she was also the lynchpin of an imperial British scheme to link by air the far-flung areas of its empire, from Australia to India, South Africa, Canada, Egypt, and Singapore. No one had ever conceived of anything like this, and R101 captivated the world. There was just one problem: beyond the hype and technological wonders, these big, steel-framed, hydrogen-filled airships were a dangerously bad idea.
Gwynne’s chronicle features a cast of remarkable—and tragically flawed—characters, including Lord Christopher Thomson, the man who dreamed up the Imperial Airship Scheme and then relentlessly pushed R101 to her destruction; Princess Marthe Bibesco, the celebrated writer and glamorous socialite with whom he had a long affair; and George Herbert Scott, a national hero who was the first person to cross the Atlantic twice in any aircraft, in 1919—eight years before Lindbergh’s famous flight—but who devolved into drink and ruin. These historical figures—and the ship they built, flew, and crashed—come together in “a Promethean tale of unlimited ambitions and technical limitations, airy dreams and explosive endings” (The Wall Street Journal).
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Reviews
"Nicholas Boulton’s smooth narration is perfect for this well-researched historical account of the ill-fated experimental British rigid airship, the R101...Boulton’s keen sense for wry humor, especially apparent when relaying footnotes, underscores the absurdity of the political and military imperatives that hastened the R101’s flight to India in October 1930 without rigorous testing and adjustments. Aviation history buffs will find this a compelling production."
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