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R38-class airship

The R.38 class (also known as the A class) of rigid airships was designed for Britain's Royal Navy during the final months of the First World War, intended for long-range patrol duties over the North Sea. Four similar airships were originally ordered by the Admiralty, but orders for three of these (R.39, R.40 and R.41) were cancelled after the armistice with Germany and R.38, the lead ship of the class, was sold to the United States Navy in October 1919 before completion.

R38 class (A class) airship
The R.38/ZR-2 making its first flight trial on 23 June 1921
Role Patrol airship
National origin United Kingdom
Manufacturer Short Brothers
First flight 23 June 1921
Status Destroyed 24 August 1921
Primary user United States Navy
Produced 1
Number built 1 (orders for 3 others cancelled)

On 24 August 1921, R.38 (designated ZR-2 by the USN) was destroyed by a structural failure while in flight over the city of Hull. It crashed into the Humber Estuary, killing 44 out of the 49 crew aboard and one black cat named Snowball. [1] [2][3] At the time of its first flight it was the world's largest airship.[4] Its destruction was the first of the great airship disasters, followed by the Italian-built US semi-rigid airship Roma in 1922 (34 dead), the French Dixmude in 1923 (52 dead), the USS Shenandoah in 1925 (14 dead), the British R101 in 1930 (48 dead), the USS Akron in 1933 (73 dead), the USS Macon in 1935 (2 dead), and the German Hindenburg in 1937 (36 dead).

Design and development edit

The R.38 class was designed to meet an Admiralty requirement of June 1918 for an airship capable of patrolling for six days at ranges of up to 300 miles from home base and altitudes of up to 22,000 ft (6,700 m).[4] A heavy load of armaments was specified, to allow the airship to be used to escort surface vessels. Design work was carried out by an Admiralty team led by Constructor-Commander C. I. R. Campbell, of the Royal Corps of Navy Constructors.[5] The construction contract was awarded to Short Brothers in September 1918 but cancelled on 31 January 1919 before work had been started. It was then re-ordered on 17 February: on the same day, Oswald Short was informed that the Cardington, Bedfordshire works, recently built as a specialised airship production facility, was to be nationalised.[6] Construction of R.38 started at Cardington in February 1919. It was intended to follow R.38 with orders for three airships of the same class: R.39, identical to R.38, to be built by Armstrong-Whitworth, and two others, R.40 and R.41, of a design variant with the length reduced to 690 ft (210.31 m) due to the limited size of existing manufacturing sheds.[7] The Armistice coupled with the assignment of airships from the admiralty to the Royal Air Force and a decision to nationalize the Shorts airship plant into the Royal Airship Works confused the matter of whom was responsible for what. Constructor-Commander Campbell became both Manager and Chief Designer of the Royal Airship Works.[8]

Later in 1919, several airship orders were cancelled as a peacetime economy measure, including the three planned R.38 class ships.[4] In a further round of cutbacks, the cancellation of the unfinished R.38 also appeared imminent, but, before this actually happened, the project was offered to the United States. The United States Navy demanded significant changes in the airship including modification to the bow in order to allow mooring to a mast, access to the mast from the keel and the addition of weight to the stern to ensure balance.[9]

The hull contained 14 hydrogen-filled gasbags. The 13-sided mainframes were 49 ft (15 m) apart, and were made up of diamond-shaped trusses connected by 13 main and 12 secondary longitudinal girders and a trapezoidal keel. There were two secondary ring frames between each pair of mainframes. The forward-mounted control car was directly attached to the hull. The cruciform tail surfaces were unbraced cantilevers and carried aerodynamically balanced elevators and rudders. The six Sunbeam Cossack engines, each driving a two-bladed pusher propeller, were housed in individual cars arranged as three pairs: one pair aft of the control car, one pair amidships, and the third pair aft.[10]

Sale to United States edit

The United States Navy had decided that it wanted to add rigid airships to its fleet and originally hoped to get two Zeppelins as part of war reparations, but these had been deliberately destroyed by their crews in 1919[11] in actions connected with the scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow. An order was placed with the Zeppelin company for a new craft, to be paid for by the Germans (which became USS Los Angeles), and, to go with it, they also planned to build one in the United States (which became USS Shenandoah). With the news of the impending termination of R.38's construction, the possibility of taking over the project was investigated. An agreement was reached in October 1919 for its purchase for £300,000,[12] and work on the airship was resumed. As work progressed the US Navy began checking the documentation given them by the British. Following significant girder failures during testing Commander Jerome Hunsacker and Charles Burgess raised questions over the strength of R.38. Burgess concluded that "This investigation indicates that the transverses of the R.38 are only just strong enough, and have no factor of safety".[13]

Operational history edit

 
The R38/ZR-2 leaving its hangar for trials, showing the top gun platform.

The airship was to be given a curtailed series of tests before being handed over to the U.S. Navy, who would fly it across the Atlantic. J. E. M. Pritchard, the officer in charge of flight testing, proposed to carry out 100 hours of flight testing, including flights in rough weather, followed by 50 more flown by an American crew before crossing the Atlantic.[14] The commander of the Howden Detachment Commander Maxfield disagreed and urged that the test of R.38 be completed in one day. Air Commodore Edward Maitland as the man most responsible for testing the R.38 was appalled and disagreed. He protested the abbreviated test schedule. He was told to not provide advice unless asked.[15] The Air Ministry ruled that 50 hours would be sufficient.[16] The decision had been made in ignorance by officials unfamiliar with airships as well as the knowledgeable officers who were reluctant to release an airship of unproven strength, egged on by an eagerness to return to America by Commander Maxfield.[17]

The R.38 made its first flight on 23–24 June 1921, when it flew registered as R.38 but bearing the US designation ZR-2;[18] the seven-hour flight revealed problems with over-balance of the control surfaces. With the balance area of the top rudder reduced, a second test flight was carried out on 17–18 July. The control balance problem remained, and, on return to Cardington, all the control surfaces were reduced in area. On 17–18 July, a third flight was made, during which the airship was flown from Cardington to Howden and then out over the North Sea, where the speed was increased to 58 mph (93 km/h), causing the ship to begin hunting over a range of around 500 ft (150 m). The highly experienced Pritchard took over the controls from the American coxswain and reduced the oscillation, but several girders in the vicinity of the midship engine cars had already failed. The control surfaces were still over balanced. More importantly girders of intermediate frame 7b as well as longitudinal Girder F had failed in one place, while frame 7a and longitudinal F' each had failed in two locations.[19] R.38 returned to Howden at reduced speed.[20] Work on reinforcing the buckled girders was carried out and completed by 30 July at Howden.[21] There were increasing doubts being expressed about the design, including some made by Air Commodore E. M. Maitland, the very experienced commander of the Howden base. Maitland urged that all future speed trials be conducted at higher altitude as was the practice of the Germans while testing the fragile Zeppelins upon which the R.38 design was based.[22] There was considerable concern expressed by Admiral Griffen, the chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering. Burgess at the Bureau of Construction and Repair was also concerned.[23] Starr Truscott of the Bureau of Construction and Repairs believed that the negative endorsements of Admirals Griffin and Taylor would suffice to extend trials for the ZR-2 (R.38) but he was soon proven wrong. Admiral Taylor endorsed Commander Maxfield's optimistic report of July 20.[22] Truscott later came to accept that decision writing "We must accept ship as per British practice, i.e., if acceptable to Air Ministry it must be to us. Question of starting flight is up to people in England."[24]

Fatal crash edit

 
Rescuers scramble across the wreckage of British R.38/USN ZR-2, 24 August 1921.

Following a spell of bad weather, the airship was walked out on 23 August and, in the early morning, took off for its fourth flight,[25] which had an intended destination of RNAS Pulham in Norfolk, where it could be moored to a mast (a facility unavailable at Howden). The mooring, however, proved impossible because of low cloud, so the airship returned to sea for the night. The next day, after a brief speed trial (during which a speed of 71.9 mph (115.7 km/h) was reached), a series of turning trials was started at a speed of 62.7 mph (100.9 km/h) and an altitude of 2,500 ft (760 m).[26] Passing over Hull, a series of control reversals were started which the Germans would never have attempted at such a low altitude. Wann, who was in the control gondola, stated that the controls were never put beyond 15 degrees, while Bateman, from the National Physical Laboratory who was recording pressures upon the vertical fins, stated clearly that the rudders were being driven rapidly from hard over to hard over which would have been 25 degrees from one side to 25 degrees to the other.[27] At 17:37, while close offshore near Hull and watched by thousands of spectators, the structure failed amidships. Eyewitnesses reported seeing creases diagonally along the hull towards the stern. Both ends drooped. The R.38 then cracked open with men and objects dropping from the rupture.[28] The two sections separated with the forward section catching fire followed by two colossal explosions.[29] The two explosions broke windows over a large area with the flaming fore section falling rapidly followed by the aft section descending slowly.[30] The remains fell into the shallow waters of the Humber Estuary. Sixteen of the 17 Americans, and 28 of the 32 Britons, in the crew were killed, including both Maitland and Pritchard.[31][32] The only American to survive was Rigger Norman Otto Walker.[33] Four of those who survived were in the tail section, Flight Lieutenant Archibald Herbert Wann, R.38's British Commanding Officer, was in the control gondola and survived.[34][4]

A memorial was erected at Hull,[4] and in 2021, a centenary memorial service was held at Hull Minster.[35]

Aftermath edit

The loss of the R.38, which represented the hope of airship men in Britain, resulted in three official enquiries into the disaster. The first, chaired by Air Vice-Marshal Sir John Salmond and composed mainly of RAF personnel, was convened on 27 August. Its remit was to consider the general circumstances of the accident, and, although it came to the conclusion that the structure had failed while extreme control forces were being exerted, it was considered necessary to carry out a more detailed technical inquiry into the airship's design. The report also criticized the system by which a single authority was responsible both for the airship's construction and for inspection of the work, and, given the great differences between R.38 and previous British designs, held that the design should have been subjected to a more thorough scrutiny.[36]

The Admiralty held a second inquiry into the history of the design of the airship, and into its construction up to the point where it was taken over from the Admiralty by the Air Ministry. In contrast to the previous inquiry, this one concluded that the design did not incorporate any new features which affected the airship's strength, and further maintained that "there was at the time no body in existence which could have been called in to advise on the structural strength of R.38."[37]

The technical Committee of Enquiry, chaired by Mervyn O'Gorman, concluded that no allowance had been made for aerodynamic stresses in the design, and that while no loads had been placed on the structure during testing that would not have been met in normal use, the effects of the manoeuvres made had weakened the hull. No blame was attached to anyone, as this was not part of the committee's remit.[38]

The R.38 disaster led to a rigorous investigation of the structure of airships preceding the design of the next two airships built in Britain, the R.100 and the more radical R.101. What is curious is that the practice of having responsibility for design and ultimately judging the airworthiness of that design remained in the same hands.[39] Nevil Shute Norway (who was the novelist Nevil Shute) worked on the design of the R.100 airship for Vickers Ltd. from 1924. When he researched previous airship calculations and read the reports of the 1921 R.38 crash he was "unable to believe the words he was reading" that "the civil servants concerned had made no attempt to calculate the aerodynamic forces ... " and he asked one of his chiefs "if this could possibly be true. Not only did he confirm it but he pointed out that no one had been sacked over it or even suffered any censure."[40] For the men who built the R.38 its sale to the US Navy represented a last chance to salvage something from the Royal Navy's rigid airship program and its takeover and abandonment by the RAF. The demands of the Exchequer and the US Navy's commander Maxwell converged to cause risks to be taken which were questioned at the time and ignored with fatal consequences.[41]

 
R38 memorial, Western Cemetery, Hull

Specifications (R.38/ZR-2) edit

Data from Flight 6 June 1921 :ZR.2 ("R.38")[42]

General characteristics

  • Crew: 28–30
  • Length: 695 ft (212 m)
  • Diameter: 85 ft 4 in (26.01 m)
  • Volume: 2,700,000 cu ft (76,000 m3)
  • Fuel capacity: 30 long tons (67,200 lb; 30,481 kg)
  • Useful lift: 185,900 lb (84,300 kg)
  • Powerplant: 6 × Sunbeam Cossack III V-12 water-cooled piston engines, 350 hp (260 kW) each
  • Propellers: 4-bladed fixed-pitch propellers

Performance

  • Maximum speed: 70 mph (110 km/h, 61 kn)
  • Cruise speed: 60 mph (97 km/h, 52 kn)
  • Range: 6,500 mi (10,500 km, 5,600 nmi) at cruising speed
5,000 mi (4,300 nmi; 8,000 km) at maximum continuous power
  • Service ceiling: 22,000 ft (6,700 m)

Armament

  • Guns: * 1 × one-pounder gun top (intended)
  • 14 × Lewis guns in (intended)
  • Bombs: * 4 × 520 lb (236 kg) bombs (intended)
  • 6 × 230 lb (105 kg) bombs (intended)

R.38 Memorial Prize edit

In December 1922, the Council of the Royal Aeronautical Society decided to offer an annual prize for technical papers on airships, open to international competition. This would be known as the R.38 Memorial Prize.[43] The first R.38 Memorial Prize was awarded to C.P. Burgess, Jerome Hunsacker, and Starr Truscott who presented their paper "The Strength of Rigid Airships."[44]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ , “Snowball.” Cats in the Navy, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Maryland, 2022, p.152.
  2. ^ Historic England. "Airship Monument in Hull (1512866)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 12 January 2013. "Entry includes considerable details about the ship, flight, and crash."
  3. ^ Driggs, Laurence La Tourette (7 September 1921). "The Fall of the Airship". The Outlook. Vol. 129. New York. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
  4. ^ a b c d e "R38/ZR2". The Airship Heritage Trust. Retrieved 14 December 2012.
  5. ^ Swinfield 2012, p. 78
  6. ^ Higham 1961, pp. 204–205.
  7. ^ Higham 1961, p. 207.
  8. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 57.
  9. ^ Douglas H. Robinson, and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982, p. 34
  10. ^ Robinson 1973, pp. 168–169
  11. ^ Swanborough, G. and Bowers, P. M. United States Navy Aircraft since 1912 (2nd ed.), p. 587. London: Putnam, 1976. ISBN 978-0-370-10054-8.
  12. ^ Robinson 1973, p. 169
  13. ^ Douglas H. Robinson, and Charles L. Keller (1982). "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. p. 35.
  14. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 77
  15. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 78
  16. ^ Robinson 1974, p. 170
  17. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 79
  18. ^ "Airship R-38". Navy Historical Department. Retrieved 15 December 2013.
  19. ^ Douglas H. Robinson, and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982, p. 39
  20. ^ Higham 1961, p. 221
  21. ^ "The Airship Disaster" (PDF). The Engineer. 2 September 1921. p. 231. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
  22. ^ a b Douglas H. Robinson, and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982, p. 40
  23. ^ Douglas H. Robinson, and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982, p. 41
  24. ^ Douglas H. Robinson, and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982, p. 42
  25. ^ Althof 2004, p. 4
  26. ^ Higham 1961, p. 222
  27. ^ Douglas H. Robinson, and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982, p. 45
  28. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 101.
  29. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 102.
  30. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 104.
  31. ^ US Navy photograph of plaque showing US losses
  32. ^ US Navy photograph of plaque showing British losses
  33. ^ Douglas H. Robinson, and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982, p. 220, note 36
  34. ^ Humanities, National Endowment for the (25 August 1921). "The Evening World. [volume] (New York) 1887–1931, August 25, 1921, Wall Street Final Edition, Image 2". p. 2. ISSN 1941-0654. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
  35. ^ "Service marking 100 years since Humber airship disaster to be held in Hull Minster". Hull Daily Mail. 17 August 2021. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
  36. ^ "R.38 Court of Enquiry". Flight. 13 October 1921. p. 671.
  37. ^ "Editorial Comment". Flight. 19 January 1922. pp. 31–32.
  38. ^ "The Accident to H.M. Airship R. 38". Flight. 2 March 1922. p. 139.
  39. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 121.
  40. ^ Slide Rule 1954, pp. 55–57.
  41. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 124.
  42. ^ "ZR.2 ("R.38") : A Visit to the Royal Airship Works". Flight. XIII (650 (Vol. XIII No. 23)): 387–389. 9 June 1921.
  43. ^ "R38 Memorial Prize". The Aeronautical Journal. 26 (144): 461. December 1922 – via Cambridge Core.
  44. ^ Jamison 1994, p. 138.

References edit

  • Airshipsonline. 2006. Airshipsonline – Airship Heritage Trust: R38, last accessed 28 June 2008
  • Althof, William F. USS Los Angeles: The Navy's Venerable Airship and Aviation Technology. Brassey's, 2004, p. 4
  • Robinson, Douglas H., and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airships 1919–1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982. ISBN 0-87021-738-0
  • Griehl, Manfred and Dressel Joachim, Zeppelin! The German Airship Story, 1990 ISBN 1-85409-045-3
  • Higham, Robin. The British Rigid Airship 1908–1931. Henley-on-Thames: Foulis, 1961.
  • Jamison, T. W. Icarus over the Humber, Lampada Press, 1994 ISBN 1-873811-03-9
  • Mowthorpe, Ces. Battlebags: British Airships of the First World War, 1995 ISBN 0-905778-13-8
  • Norway, Neville Shute (1954). Slide Rule. London: William Heinemann.
  • Swinfield, John. Airship: Design, Development and Disaster. London: Conway, 2012. ISBN 978-1-84486-138-5
  • Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik. Jane's Pocket Book 7 – Airship Development, 1976 ISBN 0-356-04656-7
  • Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik. Airship saga: The history of airships seen through the eyes of the men who designed, built, and flew them , 1982, ISBN 0-7137-1001-2
  • BBC Humber article on the R38 disaster

External links edit

  • "The "R.38" Disaster". Flight. Vol. XIII, no. 35. 1 September 1921. pp. 589–592. No. 662. Retrieved 27 April 2012. Detailed contemporary report of the R38 accident, including survivors' accounts, early speculation on the cause, and reporting of official reactions. An editorial view is on pages 581–582.
  • "Honouring the Dead". Flight. Vol. XIII, no. 36. 8 September 1921. p. 606. No. 663. Retrieved 27 April 2012. Contemporary report of the funeral services for the R38 victims.
  • ""R.38" Court of Enquiry". Flight. Vol. XIII, no. 41. 13 October 1921. p. 671. No. 668. Retrieved 28 April 2012. Report of the Court of Enquiry on the R38 accident. An editorial comment is on pages 667–668.
  • Smith, Alfred Emanuel (21 September 1921). "Lessons of the ZR-2". The Outlook. Vol. 129. pp. 80, 82. Retrieved 30 July 2009. Photograph of the crash site.

class, airship, redirects, here, other, uses, disambiguation, redirects, here, series, class, also, known, class, rigid, airships, designed, britain, royal, navy, during, final, months, first, world, intended, long, range, patrol, duties, over, north, four, si. R38 redirects here For other uses see R38 disambiguation ZR 2 redirects here For the GM S Series ZR2 see RPO ZR2 The R 38 class also known as the A class of rigid airships was designed for Britain s Royal Navy during the final months of the First World War intended for long range patrol duties over the North Sea Four similar airships were originally ordered by the Admiralty but orders for three of these R 39 R 40 and R 41 were cancelled after the armistice with Germany and R 38 the lead ship of the class was sold to the United States Navy in October 1919 before completion R38 class A class airship The R 38 ZR 2 making its first flight trial on 23 June 1921 Role Patrol airship National origin United Kingdom Manufacturer Short Brothers First flight 23 June 1921 Status Destroyed 24 August 1921 Primary user United States Navy Produced 1 Number built 1 orders for 3 others cancelled On 24 August 1921 R 38 designated ZR 2 by the USN was destroyed by a structural failure while in flight over the city of Hull It crashed into the Humber Estuary killing 44 out of the 49 crew aboard and one black cat named Snowball 1 2 3 At the time of its first flight it was the world s largest airship 4 Its destruction was the first of the great airship disasters followed by the Italian built US semi rigid airship Roma in 1922 34 dead the French Dixmude in 1923 52 dead the USS Shenandoah in 1925 14 dead the British R101 in 1930 48 dead the USS Akron in 1933 73 dead the USS Macon in 1935 2 dead and the German Hindenburg in 1937 36 dead Contents 1 Design and development 2 Sale to United States 3 Operational history 3 1 Fatal crash 3 2 Aftermath 4 Specifications R 38 ZR 2 5 R 38 Memorial Prize 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External linksDesign and development editThe R 38 class was designed to meet an Admiralty requirement of June 1918 for an airship capable of patrolling for six days at ranges of up to 300 miles from home base and altitudes of up to 22 000 ft 6 700 m 4 A heavy load of armaments was specified to allow the airship to be used to escort surface vessels Design work was carried out by an Admiralty team led by Constructor Commander C I R Campbell of the Royal Corps of Navy Constructors 5 The construction contract was awarded to Short Brothers in September 1918 but cancelled on 31 January 1919 before work had been started It was then re ordered on 17 February on the same day Oswald Short was informed that the Cardington Bedfordshire works recently built as a specialised airship production facility was to be nationalised 6 Construction of R 38 started at Cardington in February 1919 It was intended to follow R 38 with orders for three airships of the same class R 39 identical to R 38 to be built by Armstrong Whitworth and two others R 40 and R 41 of a design variant with the length reduced to 690 ft 210 31 m due to the limited size of existing manufacturing sheds 7 The Armistice coupled with the assignment of airships from the admiralty to the Royal Air Force and a decision to nationalize the Shorts airship plant into the Royal Airship Works confused the matter of whom was responsible for what Constructor Commander Campbell became both Manager and Chief Designer of the Royal Airship Works 8 Later in 1919 several airship orders were cancelled as a peacetime economy measure including the three planned R 38 class ships 4 In a further round of cutbacks the cancellation of the unfinished R 38 also appeared imminent but before this actually happened the project was offered to the United States The United States Navy demanded significant changes in the airship including modification to the bow in order to allow mooring to a mast access to the mast from the keel and the addition of weight to the stern to ensure balance 9 The hull contained 14 hydrogen filled gasbags The 13 sided mainframes were 49 ft 15 m apart and were made up of diamond shaped trusses connected by 13 main and 12 secondary longitudinal girders and a trapezoidal keel There were two secondary ring frames between each pair of mainframes The forward mounted control car was directly attached to the hull The cruciform tail surfaces were unbraced cantilevers and carried aerodynamically balanced elevators and rudders The six Sunbeam Cossack engines each driving a two bladed pusher propeller were housed in individual cars arranged as three pairs one pair aft of the control car one pair amidships and the third pair aft 10 Sale to United States editThe United States Navy had decided that it wanted to add rigid airships to its fleet and originally hoped to get two Zeppelins as part of war reparations but these had been deliberately destroyed by their crews in 1919 11 in actions connected with the scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow An order was placed with the Zeppelin company for a new craft to be paid for by the Germans which became USS Los Angeles and to go with it they also planned to build one in the United States which became USS Shenandoah With the news of the impending termination of R 38 s construction the possibility of taking over the project was investigated An agreement was reached in October 1919 for its purchase for 300 000 12 and work on the airship was resumed As work progressed the US Navy began checking the documentation given them by the British Following significant girder failures during testing Commander Jerome Hunsacker and Charles Burgess raised questions over the strength of R 38 Burgess concluded that This investigation indicates that the transverses of the R 38 are only just strong enough and have no factor of safety 13 Operational history edit nbsp The R38 ZR 2 leaving its hangar for trials showing the top gun platform The airship was to be given a curtailed series of tests before being handed over to the U S Navy who would fly it across the Atlantic J E M Pritchard the officer in charge of flight testing proposed to carry out 100 hours of flight testing including flights in rough weather followed by 50 more flown by an American crew before crossing the Atlantic 14 The commander of the Howden Detachment Commander Maxfield disagreed and urged that the test of R 38 be completed in one day Air Commodore Edward Maitland as the man most responsible for testing the R 38 was appalled and disagreed He protested the abbreviated test schedule He was told to not provide advice unless asked 15 The Air Ministry ruled that 50 hours would be sufficient 16 The decision had been made in ignorance by officials unfamiliar with airships as well as the knowledgeable officers who were reluctant to release an airship of unproven strength egged on by an eagerness to return to America by Commander Maxfield 17 The R 38 made its first flight on 23 24 June 1921 when it flew registered as R 38 but bearing the US designation ZR 2 18 the seven hour flight revealed problems with over balance of the control surfaces With the balance area of the top rudder reduced a second test flight was carried out on 17 18 July The control balance problem remained and on return to Cardington all the control surfaces were reduced in area On 17 18 July a third flight was made during which the airship was flown from Cardington to Howden and then out over the North Sea where the speed was increased to 58 mph 93 km h causing the ship to begin hunting over a range of around 500 ft 150 m The highly experienced Pritchard took over the controls from the American coxswain and reduced the oscillation but several girders in the vicinity of the midship engine cars had already failed The control surfaces were still over balanced More importantly girders of intermediate frame 7b as well as longitudinal Girder F had failed in one place while frame 7a and longitudinal F each had failed in two locations 19 R 38 returned to Howden at reduced speed 20 Work on reinforcing the buckled girders was carried out and completed by 30 July at Howden 21 There were increasing doubts being expressed about the design including some made by Air Commodore E M Maitland the very experienced commander of the Howden base Maitland urged that all future speed trials be conducted at higher altitude as was the practice of the Germans while testing the fragile Zeppelins upon which the R 38 design was based 22 There was considerable concern expressed by Admiral Griffen the chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering Burgess at the Bureau of Construction and Repair was also concerned 23 Starr Truscott of the Bureau of Construction and Repairs believed that the negative endorsements of Admirals Griffin and Taylor would suffice to extend trials for the ZR 2 R 38 but he was soon proven wrong Admiral Taylor endorsed Commander Maxfield s optimistic report of July 20 22 Truscott later came to accept that decision writing We must accept ship as per British practice i e if acceptable to Air Ministry it must be to us Question of starting flight is up to people in England 24 Fatal crash edit nbsp Rescuers scramble across the wreckage of British R 38 USN ZR 2 24 August 1921 Following a spell of bad weather the airship was walked out on 23 August and in the early morning took off for its fourth flight 25 which had an intended destination of RNAS Pulham in Norfolk where it could be moored to a mast a facility unavailable at Howden The mooring however proved impossible because of low cloud so the airship returned to sea for the night The next day after a brief speed trial during which a speed of 71 9 mph 115 7 km h was reached a series of turning trials was started at a speed of 62 7 mph 100 9 km h and an altitude of 2 500 ft 760 m 26 Passing over Hull a series of control reversals were started which the Germans would never have attempted at such a low altitude Wann who was in the control gondola stated that the controls were never put beyond 15 degrees while Bateman from the National Physical Laboratory who was recording pressures upon the vertical fins stated clearly that the rudders were being driven rapidly from hard over to hard over which would have been 25 degrees from one side to 25 degrees to the other 27 At 17 37 while close offshore near Hull and watched by thousands of spectators the structure failed amidships Eyewitnesses reported seeing creases diagonally along the hull towards the stern Both ends drooped The R 38 then cracked open with men and objects dropping from the rupture 28 The two sections separated with the forward section catching fire followed by two colossal explosions 29 The two explosions broke windows over a large area with the flaming fore section falling rapidly followed by the aft section descending slowly 30 The remains fell into the shallow waters of the Humber Estuary Sixteen of the 17 Americans and 28 of the 32 Britons in the crew were killed including both Maitland and Pritchard 31 32 The only American to survive was Rigger Norman Otto Walker 33 Four of those who survived were in the tail section Flight Lieutenant Archibald Herbert Wann R 38 s British Commanding Officer was in the control gondola and survived 34 4 A memorial was erected at Hull 4 and in 2021 a centenary memorial service was held at Hull Minster 35 Aftermath edit The loss of the R 38 which represented the hope of airship men in Britain resulted in three official enquiries into the disaster The first chaired by Air Vice Marshal Sir John Salmond and composed mainly of RAF personnel was convened on 27 August Its remit was to consider the general circumstances of the accident and although it came to the conclusion that the structure had failed while extreme control forces were being exerted it was considered necessary to carry out a more detailed technical inquiry into the airship s design The report also criticized the system by which a single authority was responsible both for the airship s construction and for inspection of the work and given the great differences between R 38 and previous British designs held that the design should have been subjected to a more thorough scrutiny 36 The Admiralty held a second inquiry into the history of the design of the airship and into its construction up to the point where it was taken over from the Admiralty by the Air Ministry In contrast to the previous inquiry this one concluded that the design did not incorporate any new features which affected the airship s strength and further maintained that there was at the time no body in existence which could have been called in to advise on the structural strength of R 38 37 The technical Committee of Enquiry chaired by Mervyn O Gorman concluded that no allowance had been made for aerodynamic stresses in the design and that while no loads had been placed on the structure during testing that would not have been met in normal use the effects of the manoeuvres made had weakened the hull No blame was attached to anyone as this was not part of the committee s remit 38 The R 38 disaster led to a rigorous investigation of the structure of airships preceding the design of the next two airships built in Britain the R 100 and the more radical R 101 What is curious is that the practice of having responsibility for design and ultimately judging the airworthiness of that design remained in the same hands 39 Nevil Shute Norway who was the novelist Nevil Shute worked on the design of the R 100 airship for Vickers Ltd from 1924 When he researched previous airship calculations and read the reports of the 1921 R 38 crash he was unable to believe the words he was reading that the civil servants concerned had made no attempt to calculate the aerodynamic forces and he asked one of his chiefs if this could possibly be true Not only did he confirm it but he pointed out that no one had been sacked over it or even suffered any censure 40 For the men who built the R 38 its sale to the US Navy represented a last chance to salvage something from the Royal Navy s rigid airship program and its takeover and abandonment by the RAF The demands of the Exchequer and the US Navy s commander Maxwell converged to cause risks to be taken which were questioned at the time and ignored with fatal consequences 41 nbsp R38 memorial Western Cemetery HullSpecifications R 38 ZR 2 editData from Flight 6 June 1921 ZR 2 R 38 42 General characteristicsCrew 28 30 Length 695 ft 212 m Diameter 85 ft 4 in 26 01 m Volume 2 700 000 cu ft 76 000 m3 Fuel capacity 30 long tons 67 200 lb 30 481 kg Useful lift 185 900 lb 84 300 kg Powerplant 6 Sunbeam Cossack III V 12 water cooled piston engines 350 hp 260 kW each Propellers 4 bladed fixed pitch propellers Performance Maximum speed 70 mph 110 km h 61 kn Cruise speed 60 mph 97 km h 52 kn Range 6 500 mi 10 500 km 5 600 nmi at cruising speed 5 000 mi 4 300 nmi 8 000 km at maximum continuous power dd dd dd Service ceiling 22 000 ft 6 700 m Armament Guns 1 one pounder gun top intended 14 Lewis guns in intended Bombs 4 520 lb 236 kg bombs intended 6 230 lb 105 kg bombs intended R 38 Memorial Prize editIn December 1922 the Council of the Royal Aeronautical Society decided to offer an annual prize for technical papers on airships open to international competition This would be known as the R 38 Memorial Prize 43 The first R 38 Memorial Prize was awarded to C P Burgess Jerome Hunsacker and Starr Truscott who presented their paper The Strength of Rigid Airships 44 See also editList of airship accidents List of airships of the United States Navy List of disasters in Great Britain and Ireland by death tollNotes edit Snowball Cats in the Navy Naval Institute Press Annapolis Maryland 2022 p 152 Historic England Airship Monument in Hull 1512866 Research records formerly PastScape Retrieved 12 January 2013 Entry includes considerable details about the ship flight and crash Driggs Laurence La Tourette 7 September 1921 The Fall of the Airship The Outlook Vol 129 New York pp 14 15 Retrieved 30 July 2009 a b c d e R38 ZR2 The Airship Heritage Trust Retrieved 14 December 2012 Swinfield 2012 p 78 Higham 1961 pp 204 205 Higham 1961 p 207 Jamison 1994 p 57 Douglas H Robinson and Charles L Keller Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press 1982 p 34 Robinson 1973 pp 168 169 Swanborough G and Bowers P M United States Navy Aircraft since 1912 2nd ed p 587 London Putnam 1976 ISBN 978 0 370 10054 8 Robinson 1973 p 169 Douglas H Robinson and Charles L Keller 1982 Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press p 35 Jamison 1994 p 77 Jamison 1994 p 78 Robinson 1974 p 170 Jamison 1994 p 79 Airship R 38 Navy Historical Department Retrieved 15 December 2013 Douglas H Robinson and Charles L Keller Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press 1982 p 39 Higham 1961 p 221 The Airship Disaster PDF The Engineer 2 September 1921 p 231 Retrieved 13 July 2015 a b Douglas H Robinson and Charles L Keller Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press 1982 p 40 Douglas H Robinson and Charles L Keller Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press 1982 p 41 Douglas H Robinson and Charles L Keller Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press 1982 p 42 Althof 2004 p 4 Higham 1961 p 222 Douglas H Robinson and Charles L Keller Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press 1982 p 45 Jamison 1994 p 101 Jamison 1994 p 102 Jamison 1994 p 104 US Navy photograph of plaque showing US losses US Navy photograph of plaque showing British losses Douglas H Robinson and Charles L Keller Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press 1982 p 220 note 36 Humanities National Endowment for the 25 August 1921 The Evening World volume New York 1887 1931 August 25 1921 Wall Street Final Edition Image 2 p 2 ISSN 1941 0654 Retrieved 9 November 2019 Service marking 100 years since Humber airship disaster to be held in Hull Minster Hull Daily Mail 17 August 2021 Retrieved 18 August 2021 R 38 Court of Enquiry Flight 13 October 1921 p 671 Editorial Comment Flight 19 January 1922 pp 31 32 The Accident to H M Airship R 38 Flight 2 March 1922 p 139 Jamison 1994 p 121 Slide Rule 1954 pp 55 57 Jamison 1994 p 124 ZR 2 R 38 A Visit to the Royal Airship Works Flight XIII 650 Vol XIII No 23 387 389 9 June 1921 R38 Memorial Prize The Aeronautical Journal 26 144 461 December 1922 via Cambridge Core Jamison 1994 p 138 References editAirshipsonline 2006 Airshipsonline Airship Heritage Trust R38 last accessed 28 June 2008 Althof William F USS Los Angeles The Navy s Venerable Airship and Aviation Technology Brassey s 2004 p 4 Robinson Douglas H and Charles L Keller Up Ship U S Navy Rigid Airships 1919 1935 Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press 1982 ISBN 0 87021 738 0 Griehl Manfred and Dressel Joachim Zeppelin The German Airship Story 1990 ISBN 1 85409 045 3 Higham Robin The British Rigid Airship 1908 1931 Henley on Thames Foulis 1961 Jamison T W Icarus over the Humber Lampada Press 1994 ISBN 1 873811 03 9 Mowthorpe Ces Battlebags British Airships of the First World War 1995 ISBN 0 905778 13 8 Norway Neville Shute 1954 Slide Rule London William Heinemann Swinfield John Airship Design Development and Disaster London Conway 2012 ISBN 978 1 84486 138 5 Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik Jane s Pocket Book 7 Airship Development 1976 ISBN 0 356 04656 7 Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik Airship saga The history of airships seen through the eyes of the men who designed built and flew them 1982 ISBN 0 7137 1001 2 BBC Humber article on the R38 disasterExternal links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to R 38 The R 38 Disaster Flight Vol XIII no 35 1 September 1921 pp 589 592 No 662 Retrieved 27 April 2012 Detailed contemporary report of the R38 accident including survivors accounts early speculation on the cause and reporting of official reactions An editorial view is on pages 581 582 Honouring the Dead Flight Vol XIII no 36 8 September 1921 p 606 No 663 Retrieved 27 April 2012 Contemporary report of the funeral services for the R38 victims R 38 Court of Enquiry Flight Vol XIII no 41 13 October 1921 p 671 No 668 Retrieved 28 April 2012 Report of the Court of Enquiry on the R38 accident An editorial comment is on pages 667 668 Smith Alfred Emanuel 21 September 1921 Lessons of the ZR 2 The Outlook Vol 129 pp 80 82 Retrieved 30 July 2009 Photograph of the crash site Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title R38 class airship amp oldid 1218767793, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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