 Chapter 4. Inside the Great Airship. November to December 1929. On Saturday, November 23, 1929, Atherston surveyed from the control car the horde gathered at the base of the mooring tower. Quite a crowd of lords and commoners, he thought. Sixty-five members of parliament, eighteen peers, and their six guests braved high winds and pelting rain as they waited for a chance to ride on R101. To the cued parliamentarians, the rain was merely a nuisance, but the Atherston had signaled danger. Heavy rain added to the weight that the soon-to-be overloaded R101 must lift because the cloth cover absorbed the rain. The eighty-nine people below, once boarded, would constitute the heaviest load ever borne by R101, and nearly the largest number ever aloft in any craft. To accommodate this load, Atherston had struggled for the last twenty-four hours to shave weight from the airship. On Friday, the night before the members arrived, Atherston checked R101's lift and trim indicators at the mooring tower. The ship was three-and-a-half tons short of the lift necessary to carry eighty-nine passengers, crew, and a prudent amount of ballast and fuel. So, to increase lift, Atherston gassed the bags to ninety-seven percent of capacity, which risked bursting them if the ship accidentally rose too high. To lighten the ship's load, he drained all except five-and-a-half tons of fuel, enough for eighteen hours of flying and calm conditions. And he removed loose articles not essential for the ship to get off the ground. For example, he moved from the ship to the tower all parachutes. His last stop of the day was at the work's meteorological tower to check the weather for Saturday. The forecast was for dropping barometric pressure, rising temperature, and heavy rain, conditions which might drop R101's lift five tons by mid-morning. With a record number of passengers prepared to board, and the wind rising and the rain increasing, Atherston was shocked that Scott had not cancelled the flight. It was obvious, Atherston thought, that the flight was impossible. He resented this diversion from the more important task of testing the ship in preparation for its flight to India. To Atherston, this unnecessary flight doesn't say much for the brains up at the airhouse, Lord Thompson's Air Ministry. If this is the only way they can think of getting parliamentary support for airships. Few in Parliament raved about Thompson's plans for a fleet of airships. More often members, including those in his own Labour Party, dismissed the idea as a pipe dream. His toughest critics were in the House of Commons where, as Air Minister, Thompson defended his government's yearly request for funding. In 1928, the Scottish Labour MP, Frank Rose, protested the idea of using gas bladders to connect the Empire, pronouncing Thompson mentally ill. Of all the phases of aeronautical dementia, Rose told the House, that known to the faculty as gas begomania is the most virulent and the most malign. Since Rose's diagnosis, the objections increased as R101 and its sibling R100 missed deadlines and struggled to meet their benchmarks of speed and lift. Anyone, declared an MP from Thompson's Labour Party, who has been following the construction and the development of R100 and R101, knows that these two airships are failures. They can never be run on regular services. They can never be used for commercial purposes. He continued, It is easy to tie a football up to a mast and to get it to remain there for 12 months. That is not the test. The real test is whether the airships can fly regularly and efficiently during a large proportion of the weeks of the year. Neither of these airships can do that. They are too slow to fight against the average wind that they will have to meet, and they cannot carry a load which will make them commercial propositions. This Labour MP advocated that the government, run by his party, cut our losses before more money is spent and more lives are needlessly risked. This was the most extreme criticism of R101, but there were many MPs who were lukewarm about continuing funding for airships. Thompson hoped to convert them to enthusiastic supporters with a ride and a luxurious R101. The only luxury, though, seen by W. P. Brown, MP for Wolverhampton West, was glimpses of the teak-lined interior of the tower's elevator, as its doors snapped open to admit 12 of his colleagues. With a soft roar of its electric motor, the elevator zipped to the tower head in 90 seconds, although passengers had to wait there 15 or 20 minutes before boarding R101. The crew allowed one passenger at a time to enter the ship, then waited until R101, in the control car, trimmed the ship by redistributing fuel with blast of compressed air. This time-consuming process was slowed by an error with a first group of MPs, because signalling between the ground crew and the control car broke down, 30 members boarded before R101 knew of their arrival, setting the airship's trim. After an angry phone call from R101 to the tower, the rate of boarding slowed as the gun-shy tower crew double-checked with R101 whether to allow the next passenger to cross into the ship. As Brown approached his third-hour waiting in the driving rain, he reflected how warm he and his colleagues had started off, when, as a happy band of pilgrims, they had boarded a bus at Westminster's old palace yard. Now he thought they looked more like Arctic explorers than members of parliament. Dr. Ethel Bentham wore a thick coat or utilitarian hat pulled low to defy the wind. The tiny Miss Wilkinson, her colourful dresses, a welcome contrast in the commons of black-and-white clothing of most women MPs, disappeared into the folds of her enormous coat, her violently red hair hidden by a hat. The Bishop of Sothec, who joined the MPs as a guest, had his coat buttoned as tightly as his Episcopal Gators, and William Allen, an MP from Belfast, snuggled his small dog to keep it warm. Among the grey overcoats on this overcast day, the only spot of colour was the irrepressible Jack Hayes trademark red carnation. Brightly from the buttonhole of his Macintosh. As they waited, the MPs chatted about riding an R-101. Browne wondered whether the ship's motion induced motion sickness. Another MP revealed that two of his colleagues feared R-101 would crash. One had his will witnessed before boarding, and the other reviewed his life insurance policies for coverage of aviation accidents. Soon the elevator returned, and the tower crew pushed the conservative MP Jack Cohen to the elevator in a wheelchair at the base of the tower. They had lost both legs in the Third Battle of Epress in the First World War. As he neared the elevator, the loud snap rang through the air, followed by an indistinct warning shout, and then a few seconds later by an earth-shattering crash. The elevator cable had snapped, and its counterweight plummeted to the ground. An MP broke the stunned silence with a hoarse whisper of, ominous. With the elevator broken, Browne and his fellow guest of honour left a disappointed Jack Cohen and slogged up the three hundred steps of the tower as the wind and rain lashed them. Led by Jack Hayes and his red carnation, they arrived at the top breathless but still eager to fly in R-101. When instructed by the tower crew, the MPs clutched their embarkation tickets and climbed six short steps from the tower's platform to the three-foot-wide bridge that connected the tower to the airship. As they reached the bridge, a gust of wind swung R-101 around the tower. An insecure and swaying monster thought one MP. No one terried once on the bridge. Over the thin metal railing was a hundred and seventy-five foot dropped to the ground. Inside the ship, they climbed down a short set of steps to a walkway along the ship's bottom edge. Its three-ply spruce floor bent with each step so the MPs trod with caution. Lining the walkway were canvas walls that flapped as the wind buffeted R-101. Gaps in the flapping canvas exposed the metal girders of the framework and revealed the ship's thin, cotton linen outer cover. To one MP, the outer cover looked so transparent and frail that he feared a gently-dropped stone might go clean through, which created a despairing feeling that a false step might plunge me into eternity. About three hundred and fifty feet along the walkway they arrived at the ship's center above the control car. The crew directed the MPs to a utilitarian metal staircase, none of Thompson's promised luxury yet, from which they rose into the interior of the airship. In R-101, in contrast to all other airships, including the Graf Zeppelin, crew and passengers rode inside the ship's metal framework instead of in a gondola slung under it. The conventional gondola limited the number of passengers, the Graf Zeppelin carried twenty, and restricted the size and opulence of the passenger accommodations. A car slung under the ship had to be narrowed to prevent passengers from congregating at one end or the other because they would alter the ship's center of gravity. The movement of passengers, said R-101's designers about the narrow gondola, is more likely to take place when an airship is maneuvering to land and is traveling at high speed when the effect of any alteration of the center of gravity affects control more seriously than at high speeds. Equally important, R-101's designers were the limitations of a narrow car given that they planned to ferry one hundred passengers to the remote corners of the empire. In addition, they wanted passengers to move freely as on an ocean liner, and they intended to emphasize passenger comfort, something decreased by a car slung under the airship. In the event of the airship pitching or flying at a slight angle to the horizon, a long, narrow car accentuates the angle in the eye of the passengers. And finally, an external car increased the aerodynamic resistance of the airship and decreased fuel economy. So, in R-101, the passenger quarters were built inside the airship's Ovid framework, nestled below the center of buoyancy under a gas bag, and on the deck below the passengers but still inside the framework were the crew quarters. In this arrangement of decks, the front and back trim were not affected by the number of passengers carried. More importantly for the passengers, this placement inside the airship also allowed the quarters to be as wide as the airship itself. With this innovation, the designers hoped that R-101 would feel like a flying ocean liner. As the members climbed the stairs of R-101, they passed through the lower deck which housed the crew quarters, the chart room, and the smoking room, then up another short flight of steps to the passenger deck. The juxtaposition of the utilitarian walkway and stairs with the passenger quarters stunned the members. The undecorated stairwells contrasted with the brilliant white walls trimmed in gold. One MP thought they might be in the lobby of our hotel. Mr. Albert Savage, R-101's steward, enhanced this impression. A dapper man with a thin pencil-line mustache and ramrod-straight posture, he lent legitimacy and elegance to R-101's claim to be as luxurious as an ocean liner. Indeed, he had honed his skills as a steward aboard the White Star's RMS Majestic, a luxury liner later replaced by the Titanic. The airship bug had bitten him after he served in 1921 as Britain's first airship steward on R-36, the ship destroyed by Scott's errors. Although the change from ocean liner to airship lowered Savage's salary, one crew member estimated Savage's income dropped by £400 a year, Savage preferred, he said, the comforts of the air to the perils of the sea. He also relished the bit of fame awarded to an airship steward. He appeared in a print advertisement as the airship's food expert who uses Chase and Sandborn's fresh coffee. Beyond the thrill of riding in an airship, Savage enjoyed the camaraderie among the crew. He often amused his crew members by drawing caricatures of them in his spare time. Now Savage collected the member's tickets, checked their coats, and directed them past the toilets and into the lounge. After they had walked through the dim, utilitarian stairwell lit by low wattage bulbs and glass globes, Savage's grandeur and scale delighted the members. The lounge was the size of a tennis court and spanned the width of the airship. Its polished wood floor gleamed in the sunlight that spilled through the giant, triplex glass windows port and starboard. The light reflected from the lounge's bright white walls and illuminated every corner of the room in contrast to the windowless deck below. Framed photographs of clouds on the wall shimmered in the wall's gold inlay glittered. The gold was complimented by the royal blue trim on the thin white pillars that supported the ceiling. Garlands of flowers and silver buckets at the base of every pillar provided dramatic bursts of color. The vast floor dazzled one MP who exclaimed that it could make an admirable dance floor. And indeed, I want to once designers plan for passengers to foxtrot all night as the airship, to quote Lord Thompson, passed tranquilly over archipelagos and southern seas. When not dancing, passengers could enjoy a drink, sitting on the built-in green cushioned benches that lined the walls. Or they could recline in one of the deep blue wicker chairs scattered throughout. Once settled, they could pull up a small table, write letters on note paper imprinted with R101, and slip them into special envelopes marked On His Majesty's Service, posted on R101 in flight. Those passengers not engaged in dancing, riding or reclining could examine Lord Thompson's archipelagos from the lounge's master stroke, the promenades hidden behind the built-in benches both port and starboard. To the first-time visitor, the benches on either side seemed to form a half-wall topped by small windows dressed with Cambridge blue curtains. But behind this half-wall, accessible through a two-foot-wide opening at the center of the benches, was a promenade deck. On this ten-foot-long deck, passengers could lean against a waist-high railing and almost press their noses against a wall of glass 10 feet by 12 feet. The glass was tilted at 45 degrees, so passengers could enjoy a stunning bird's-eye view of the ground, the horizon, and the clouds. The windows were so large that the glass could not be made uniform, so in places the view was blurred and distorted. Yet it still delighted passengers. From these windows, noted in MP, one surveys the world with a confidence strangely absent from a similar height on the tower. Another imagined no experience more delightful than an afternoon spent in a deck chair on one of those promenades, gazing down upon Mediterranean islands for the deserts of Egypt and the canal. Although the promenades captivated most visitors, one MP worried about the placement of the passenger accommodations deep inside the airship. He had an awful, shut-in feeling and questioned how, in an accident, a passenger would exit the ship. Could he wonder if a passenger would make his way with an axe or a hammer through the giant glass windows? He need not have worried because the solidity of the passenger quarters was an illusion. The ceiling was like a piece of stage scenery. Observed one MP who climbed on a chair to touch it. It was fabric as were the walls. The pillars in the lounge were constructed from balsa covered with metal. The tables and shelves were also a balsa, although to increase their durability covered with a one-millimeter thick veneer. And the chairs were made of the lightest cane. As the MPs explored the rest of the passenger deck, they noted that the grandeur diminished. On their way to the sleeping quarters, they passed the toilets where, as an internal report phrased it, the smells of the ladies and gentlemen's toilet rooms were frequently in evidence. The toilets were not up to the standard necessary for paying passengers in other ways. The doors had no locks and the flushing was so complex that instructions had to be posted on the walls. Otherwise passengers might unscrew the septic tank plugs labeled for this MP's flight do not touch. More of the luster wore off as the members toured the sleeping quarters. Just beyond the toilets and after the lounge were 26 cabins, old double berth, and six-spint sleeping accommodations for 52 passengers. Although tastefully decorated in white and gold, the berths had no doors and only a Cambridge blue curtain. This saved weight, but decreased privacy already minimal because of the thin cloth walls. And the quarters were spartan, bunk beds, a small luggage stool for cabin bags, a small rug, and a note on the protocols of airship life that described how to summon a steward. The most ostentatious furnishing in the room was the porthole-shaped electrical light on the wall and an omage to the ocean liners that R101's passenger quarters sought to emulate. Yet even that flourish had a practical side. The housing was a double bulkhead with 10 thick bolts to deter passengers from changing a light bulb, which might create a spark and explode the airship. As the weather outside deteriorated and R101's departure was delayed, the senior staff of the Royal Airship Works and the ship's crew distracted the MP's with tours of the decks below the passenger quarters. The passengers reached the lower deck via the same set of stairs used to access the lounge. At the bottom were two doors, one leading to the smoking room and the other, usually off-limits to passengers, was the entrance to the lower deck. As the MP's entered the lower deck, R101 greeted them. R101 began their tour with a visit to the chart room only a few steps away. The chart room, sometimes called the Captain's Bridge, was command-central for the airship. Here, the officer of the watch was only a few steps from the stairs to the control car gondola, radio cabin, and the Captain's sleeping quarters. On the chart room's table, R101 unfolded a 40 by 30 inch map annotated by MA Ghiblet, Superintendent for Airship Services in the Meteorological Office and Chief Meteorologist R.A.W. This map was from a set that constituted the pinnacle of Ghiblet's meteorological work. He devoted his career to forecasting the weather in every inch of British Empire airspace where an imperial airship might fly. From 1925 to 1927, he gathered data to create this set of synoptic maps that showed the day-to-day variations in weather from April 1, 1924 to March 31, 1925 along all imperial airship routes Britain to North America, the Middle East, South Africa, India, Australia, and New Zealand. To create these maps, Ghiblet traveled to Egypt, Italy, France, India, New Zealand, Cylon, present-day Sri Lanka, South Africa, Australia, and Malta. At every stop, he measured the wind speed and temperatures and noted the frequency of thunderstorms. Electrical storms, Ghiblet had learned from Scott, are the airship's greatest danger, not from lightning, but because of the very serious bumps and eddies that accommodate them. These can be extremely violent and very seriously stress the structure of the airship. An airship's best course of action would be to fly around a thunderstorm, and the crew could not drop ballast and rise high above the storm because the ship was designed to fly in feet or so. Therefore, an airship crew needed detailed knowledge of the weather along its routes so they could fly around storms. Ghiblet's measurements were listed on the maps or when shared with the MPs. Marked along R101's various routes were the typical atmospheric temperatures and winds. These would be only a rough guide for planning routes and were updated during R101's flights through forecasts sent to the ship by radio. The radio cabin, only six feet from the chart room, was crammed full with the latest communications equipment. On the wall, the circuit box for the ship, radio operators doubled as electricians and wedged into a corner a cot. On this lay the latest copy of Wireless World for the operator on duty to flip through as he'd listened for the faint dots and dashes directed to GFAAW, R101's published call sign, although the frequencies used were secret to prevent the public from sending messages to the ship. Messages were sent by Morse code rather than by voice, because voice signals disintegrated once the airship was 200 miles from the tower, while Morse signals carried 2,000 miles. To get the most up-to-date reports, the operator sent R101's position often every hour to the Royal Airship Works. The officer of the watch frequently determined the positions by observing landmarks like the Metropolitan Cattle Market or St. Paul's Cathedral, but when flying over stretches of featureless terrain, he calculated the ship's position using bearings reported from a nearby radio ground station. The radio operator asked the station to prepare to take a bearing. Once acknowledged, he would again contact the station which used its antenna to measure the bearing of the ship's signal within two degrees. The operator repeated this twice and then shared the three bearings in the times with the officer of the watch. These three pieces of information on a map revealed the ship's position. If R101 were near two ground stations, the officer of the watch could use a single bearing from each to establish the ship's position. During R101's journey, officers at the Royal Airship Works positioned with green flags on a large wall map and then combed through weather reports from stations near R101's location. They sent these to the ship's radio operators who rushed them to the officer of the watch. From the radio cabin, Erwin guided the members in parties of two or three down a short flight of steps to the control car. At the controls, coxons operated the rudder and elevators. Even though the ship was at the tower, it required a crew in the control car. If the winds became violent, they would slip from the tower when the members returned from the control car to the chart room the aroma of chicken filled the air, the meal to be served to them after they finished their tour. The smells wafted from the kitchen tucked into a corner near the radio room. To view the kitchen, members squeezed through a narrow hallway and entered a room 14 feet by six and a half feet, a 30th the area of the passenger lounge above. The kitchen was stuffed with an astonishing amount of equipment for preparation, a sink and a small table, for cooking and electric oven with four hot plates, a 40 gallon water tank with three immersion heaters and a vegetable or pudding steamer, and for serving a hot cupboard to warm plates and cabinets jam packed with service for 50 plus passengers. The electrical equipment was powered by a small windmill that dropped from one of the midship engine cars. It generated electricity for the kitchen whenever R101 traveled faster than 40 miles per hour. And for safety, the electrical apparatus met the standard used in coal mines. In mines, as in a hydrogen filled airship, open flames were prohibited, so the heating elements used black heat, low resistance thick wires that do not glow red. Once prepared, the plated food was lifted by a dumbwaiter to the dining room above the kitchen. With this minimal equipment, Savage, the steward, intended to surprise R101's paying passengers with meals that were, he said, as well-cooked and as well-served as any West End hotel. To achieve this standard, he had hired a prominent London-based chef to prepare menus for seven course dinners. From the kitchen, a few intrepid and hungry members returned to the walkway where they could view the engine cars slung under the ship. Crews stationed there guided them to the openings of the hall above the two midship engine cars. Five engines powered R101, two toward the front, a slight distance apart, two also similarly spaced just after the midship, where the members now stood, and a fifth on the centerline near the tail. Each engine was housed in an egg-shaped, brightly polished metal engine car about 12.5 feet long over 10.5 feet in diameter. From the hall opening, the members looked down a short, open-air ladder used by engineers to access the cars. Utterly perilous muttered one of them. Inside the engine cars, easily seen by the members through the cars' open door, an engineer worked only a few feet from a running engine, and the chilly weather, excess heat from the two midship engines was blown into the passenger quarters because only the thin fabric covers separated passengers from the outside. When they had finished their tour, they returned to the lounge in the passenger quarters. Savage, the steward, guided them 50 at a time into the dining room next to the lounge and sleeping quarters. The dining room, as roomy as a big yacht, was brightly lit by large glass windows that diffused and softened the sunlight. Elegant white table claws with a Damascus square pattern graced each table, on them Savage had laid with precision cutlery and tableware blazoned with the Royal Airship Works crest. White china trimmed with royal blue. Silver salt shakers, crystal glasses, and small butter dishes complimented the table setting. Savage stood against a wall with his back straight and his chin raised. His appearance was spick and span, said a crew member. He signaled his staff to begin service. White cladwaiters served the members a feast. 30 chickens, 25 quarts of soup, 25 quarts of tea, 70 pounds of potatoes, 400 dinner rolls, and five gallons each of milk, port, whiskey, and beer. At lunch, R101's officers mixed with the guests. Atherston told the members near him a few home truths about the short-handed way the ship is being run. Irwin noticed that in the bumpy weather the tableware bounced off the table because beating along the edge was not deep enough. Also, he noted the tables needed a batten or wood strip along the center to keep plates in place. And Scott detailed the ship's operation and extolled the virtues of an empire-wide airship service. As the members feasted, heavy rain and hail came to the dining room windows. The wind rose to 60 miles per hour and swung R101 30 degrees around the tower in less than a minute. As the squall rocked the ship, Scott reassured the MPs. Only two or three weeks before, he said, he would have prevented passengers from boarding if the winds exceeded 30 miles per hour. But now that the ship was tested, there were only seven flights, winds of double the speed posed no danger. Once the squall had passed, Savage ordered the waiters to bring dessert. With the members and high spirits, R101 delivered a message from Lord Thompson, absent because of pressing air ministry business. The weather conditions Thompson had written have proved to be much more unsuitable than was forecast as late as eight o'clock this morning. Because of this, the flight was cancelled. The ability of R101 to stand up to conditions is not in question. Only weather passengers would be exposed to discomfort and delay in disembarkation. He explained that the wind is nearly a mile a minute, which might render her return to the tower a slow and difficult operation. No mention of decreased lift from heavy rain or of the record load on the airship. Disappointed but sated after lunch, the members gazed from the windows of the promenade deck as hail and rain continued to hammer against the windows. Across the haze-covered fields of the works, the wind thrashed the nearby trees, though sitting in the wicked chairs were rocked to sleep by the ship's gentle rolling, but those on the bench fidgeted because the 90-degree angle between seat and back was too severe for comfort. One drunk member heard an engine come to life, more heat was needed in the passenger quarters, and was convinced he'd taken a long-ish ride on R101. Those, not inclined to rest after their meal, raided the stacks of stationery, clearing off the supply in minutes. Several descended to the lower deck to enjoy the smoking room. The room was small, 30 people could squeeze into the built-in benches and wicker chairs. It had a high ceiling, which an MP thought created an odd cell-like effect. A ventilator on the ceiling drew an air, ensuring a higher pressure in the room than outside so that no hydrogen could leak into it. The room itself was, of course, fireproof. Its wood walls layered with asbestos and covered with aluminum. Still, no matches were allowed, only the electric lighters built into the furniture. As further protection against that explosion, it was built into the lower deck instead of the passenger deck above. So as to have, said the ship's designers, at least one complete deck between the smoking room and the hydrogen-filled gas bag that rested on top of the passenger quarters. As the members smoked, conversation turned from the features of R-101 to a discussion of its larger role in the Empire's aviation plans. The Conservatives, Thompson's political opponents, thought little of the ship. Not a commercial proposition, said the Irish MP William Allen as he petted his small dog. Lord Asquith praised the Royal Airship Works for the ship's design, but needed much more proof than the commercial proposition. And the diehard capitalist Lord Munchwell called R-101 an enormous amount of space for a comparatively small accommodation. More worrisome, members of Thompson's own Labour Party thought dim the prospects of R-101's success. MP Fielding West from Kennington North announced himself against the R-101 from a commercial point of view. And Robert Young, Islington North, doubted whether this type or any type of airship will ever be successful as a freight carrier, although he hoped it might compete against planes as purely a passenger ship. By evening the members departed in groups of ten, with a short interval between each group as the ship was trimmed. After all had exited, Atherston was glad to be rid of the last of them. He saw no useful purpose in the flight. The whole show, he said, was merely stupid. And the questionable measures he used to lighten the ship bothered him, taking all the emergency and tend rations and parachutes out of the ship. But he's gone. He assessed R-101's performance to date. Although Atherston thought some features of the ship a success, the cloth cover, the automatic vending of hydrogen and the undoubted strength of the hull, he grasped about everything else. We've never had any confidence in the machinery, he wrote in his diary. And we've not had a single flight or something or other that's not broken down. The engines especially disappointed him. The engines had impressed Atherston when they were first tested in the shed. Their terrifying roar echoed throughout the weather, shout a few inches from an ear, could not be heard. The engines shook the ship and pulled on the cables tethering it to the shed floor. Static electricity generated by the engines created blue halos that rose from the floor like electrified smoke rings. To prevent the discharge from igniting the hydrogen-filled ship, workers sprayed the floor with water. The propellers, just a few feet off the ground, swirled the water and created miniature tornadoes that skidded across the floor. Although the engines impressed in the shed, they were disappointed in the air. The nearly two-and-a-half-ton engines propelled the ship too slowly. Designed originally for bolting to a 100-ton locomotive chassis, they vibrated violently when run at full power in R101's engine cars, housings tethered to the airship by two slender posts. The vibrations split open the aluminum cooling pipes for the engines and cracked the hollow metal propellers. To solve the problem, the engines were run at 80% of full power and wood propellers had to be installed as well. But as is often the case, in solving one design flaw, the cracking of the hollow metal propellers, other significant adjustments had to be made. Unlike the metal propeller, a wood prop due to stress could not change from a forward to a reverse pitch, and so one of the engines had to be dedicated to reversing, leaving four of the five engines to move the ship forward. The result was that, without wind, R101 traveled at 63 miles per hour at best when cruising, and the typical headwind was about 15 miles per hour more often than not the ship traveled at just 45 miles per hour. The speed, as is noted with deliberate understatement, is nothing wonderful. But then his anger showed as he wrote that the engines were a joke in the shed test of bare-faced wrangle. Yet he worried less about the engines than about the weight R101 could lift. Earlier, the ship had struggled to stay horizontal at the tower when overloaded with members would have dropped to the ground with a wind of 45 miles per hour. Yet even with only crew, Atherston was sure the ship could not haul enough fuel to travel to India. I investigated the question of lift in England, Egypt and India about a year ago, he noted, and concluded that unless there is at least an extra 15 tons, there is no use in talking of flying to India with only one stop for refueling. He had sent his calculations to the work's technical staff but heard nothing in the year that followed. However, soon after the cancelled MP flight, Atherston heard rumours of changes to the ship, a refit in work's terminology. At first he could not confirm the rumours, neither Erwin nor I, he complained, have received any information as to what the refit is to consist of. This is a very peculiar state of affairs but typical of the manner in that the whole of this place is run. We have not even been supplied with an official lift-in-trim statement, although this has been repeatedly asked for. By early December though, he learned that the Royal Airship works technical staff had spent November studying data from the airship's test flights. They flipped through the ship's logbooks and tallied every ounce of balanced water used, each puff of hydrogen added to the gas bags and every drop of fuel consumed. And they perused detailed studies of the weather along R101's route from Britain to India. The data revealed a startling truth. It would be impossible, the work's engineers wrote in an internal report, to attempt to operate the ship, R101, on the India route even for demonstration flights. On the return trip from India, R101 could not haul enough fuel to travel more than half the first leg. In the searing heat along the 2,800-mile leg from Karachi, India to Asmalia, Egypt, R101's fuel would run out over the Arabian desert. The ship would float with its engines stalled a thousand miles from the mooring tower in Egypt. The lift that should have been used for fuel was taken up by R101's overweight metal framework and engines. The ship needed at least six more tons of lift to have the slimmest margin of safety when leaving India. And even with this amount, R101 can hardly be expected to operate with any degree of regularity on the India route. R101 would be a mere ghost ship of metal carcass with a skeleton crew. To rescue the airship from failure, the technical staff devised an audacious two-step plan to modify it. The first part of the plan meant moving R101 to its shed and stripping excess weight from it to test the changes wrought by this intensive effort. R101 would fly in late June in the Royal Air Force Display, a great pageant of British aircraft and imperialist orgy to its critics. Then back to the shed from July to September for workers to implement a second stage of the modification. This second modification was so brazen that Atterston wondered how it would be done, how this miracle is going to be accomplished, he wrote, is entirely beyond me. The plan was to add a gas bag to R101 by cutting the ship in half and inserting a new center section. The scope of the change was so complex that Atterston felt sure the burden of readying R101 for a late September 1930 flight to India would fall on him. I suppose it will be another flap and panic, he wrote in his diary, and the flying staff will again be called upon to save the faces of the heads by taking over the ship in a semi-ready and nearly totally un-airworthy condition.