Lessons of R100

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1041, 4 August 1930, Page 9

Lessons of RIOO

NOT FIT FOR ATLANTIC RUN Bigger Airships Necessary BRITAIN WILL BUILD THEM LATER BEFORE a regular transatlantic dirigible service is established, airships bigger and faster than RIOO, now at -Montreal, will be required. The British air Ministry plans to give effect, at a later date, to the lessons that have been learned from the flight of RIOO from England to Canada, leading eventually to the construction of a suitable type of vessel. British Official Wireless

Reed. 11.55 a.m. RUGBY, Sunday. The British airship RIOO, which is now swinging at the mooring mast at Montreal, underwent an examination yesterday and the Air Ministry states it was revealed that there was no structural detect or failure, but there was a stripping of the fabric over a fairly extensive area on the underside horizontal fin. Materials for repair are on hand, but it is probable no extensive flights will be undertaken in Canada. In any case, the flight over Ottawa, scheduled for August 5, must be postponed. The officers and crew of the airship are being officially welcomed at Montreal today. They received scores of telegrams and messages of congratulation. Wing-Commander Colmore, however, deprecates any exaggerated significance being attached to the voyage. It has in his view demon strated the efficiency of the thickbodied, blunt nosed type of airship, but all her . officers are agreed that the vessel does not conform to the requirements for adequate and regular trans-Atlantic service.

Sir Denniston Burney, at whose airship works the vessel was built, is of opinion that a ship twice as large as RIOO and capable of doing 85 miles an hour will be necessary for such a service “The arrival of RIOO at the mooring mast in Canada, which was built for airships, which are still in the expert mental stage, will go far to justify your confidence in British engineering skill and enterprise,” writes Lord Thomson, Secretary for Air, in a letter which RIOO carried to the Prime Minister of Canada, thanking him for Canada’s co-operation in the great experiment which was fraught with precious possibilities for the British Commonwealth of Nations. Lord Thomson adds: “If the experimental programme, of which the flight to Montreal is one of the most important features, fulfils expectations, larger and swifter vessels will be built and then all great cities will require mooring masts for leviathans crossing the Atlantic. “An adventurous spirit made the British people predominant on the seas, and they only need encouragement to secure a like advantage in the air.”