Lighter Than Air

by Guy Warner

  By February messages were being transmitted and received from Beta up to a range of 30 miles (48 kilometres). Not long afterwards the first Airship Pilot’s Certificates were issued on 14 February 1911 by the Royal Aero Club. The holder of No 1 was Lieutenant Colonel Capper, No 2 was Captain P.W.L. Broke-Smith, No 3 was Lieutenant Clive Waterlow, No 4 was E.T. Willows and No 8 was Captain E.M. Maitland.

  HM Airship No 1 Makes Her Debut

  On 9 May 1911, Neville Usborne was elected a member of the Royal Aero Club of the United Kingdom (which had been founded in 1901 with the aim of ‘encouraging aeronautics’, and of which Flight magazine was the official organ, supplied weekly to members). Two weeks later Airship No 1 was taken from its shed by a ground party of 300 sailors in the early hours of 22 May, for handling and mooring trials. The logbook noted:

  ‘At 4.18 am, airship clear of shed. Warped out to mooring post using capstan; capstan seized after a few minutes, hauled out the remainder of the way by hand, with assistance of propellers and of Hermione’s steam cutter. Secured to head of mooring post by bow wire, nose of ship close up to head of post. Wind light and variable. Ship riding lightly, but slewing through about sixty degrees relative to pontoon. Attempted to check this by securing the forward hauling down ropes. During one yaw of airship heard the flange of the channel bar (round which the port hauling down rope was secured) crack cast off hauling down ropes.’109

  HMA No 1 brought out for first time on 22 May 1911. (Huston Collection)

  Extracting the airship from her exceedingly narrow shed was no easy matter and was described as being like drawing a cork from a bottle.110 She was moored to a 38 foot (11.54 m) mast erected on a pontoon in Cavendish Dock. This was the first time a rigid airship had ever been made fast to a mast. By 10.00 am the wind had freshened and the slewing motion had become more intense:

  ‘Started forward motor and used it intermittently to check the surge forward by running propellers astern. Used twenty feet on bow mooring wire to keep ship clear of yardarms, swinging increased greatly in violence, heavy jerks being experienced, but seeing no damage beyond slight straining of the bow framing. The forward motor overheating, the steam boat was used to keep the ship astern by a long grass line to the after gondola. The use of the motor was reserved for especially bad yaws.’111

  Further measures were taken at 1.30 pm:

  ‘Removed windscreen on mooring post, effect apparently very beneficial. Hung a boat’s anchor, shackle of cable and 12 x 6 in projectiles from stern of pontoon to check it slewing, effect very good. Bossed airship close up to mooring post, yawing much reduced. Removed yards from mooring post.’112

  A diagram illustrating the procedure required to manoeuvre HMA No 1 back into its shed.

  The onlookers included Flight Magazine which announced; ‘At last our leviathan of the air has emerged from its hiding place into the full light of day.’ The author was in awe of the airship’s size:

  ‘Think of it! It would almost exactly fill St Martin’s Lane from end to end and from side to side. It can carry twenty-two persons and has cost to date the sum of £41,000. More than an acre and a half of continental fabric was employed in the construction of the envelope, and the hydrogen, compressed in cylinders, was brought from the Knowles Oxygen Co’s works at Wolverhampton by the train load at a time. Its constructors are the great firm of Vickers Ltd. The outer covers and gas ballonets were made by Messrs Short Bros, and the airship is fitted with their patent valves and rudders.’

  The sailors’ performance was also appreciated:

  ‘One of the most striking sights in connection with the launch was the sudden appearance of sailors on the very top of the envelope, where there is a prepared gangway and access to which is obtained by means of a rope ladder through the centre of the envelope itself.’113

  Vigilance during the hours of darkness was maintained with the aid of a searchlight which played upon the massive hull. The logbook noted on 23 May:

  ‘Ship riding easily with very little yawing. Ran each engine thirty minutes, changing air tanks. Took in sixteen gallons of fresh water. Forward girder of transverse frame 14 slightly buckled; partly deflated bags 6 and 8 to bring them to same degree of fullness as bag 7, and to relieve above girder.’114

  Further comments made the next day included:

  ‘Ship riding easily, yawing very slight. Wind gradually decreased to Force 3. Took in 8000 cubic feet of hydrogen from bottles placed in cutter. Crew cleaning ship and undergoing instruction in starting up motors, trimming system, etc. Cast off steadying boats, the wind freshening and the boats causing much bumping of the gondolas and straining of hull.’115

  The trials were successful in that the airship withstood winds of up to 45mph (72kph). Moreover, engine tests were conducted, and a considerable amount of handling experience and data was collected by the nine officers on board, their only complaint being that they had not been allowed to smoke! The Chairman and Directors of Vickers wrote to Captain Sueter on 24 May 1911 to congratulate him on the achievements so far:

  ‘I am exceedingly pleased to receive your letter of this date, stating that we have established a world’s record in building an airship which has successfully withstood the heavy gale of last night while moored in the open. The Chairman and Directors take this opportunity to heartily congratulate you on the successful launch of the ship, and likewise on the splendid well-thought-out arrangements made by yourself, resulting in her being so safely and satisfactorily moored. At the same time, it was felt that the heavy breeze during the first night after the launch must have given you a somewhat anxious time. I thank you on behalf of myself and our experts for your very kind observations which are, you can rest assured, greatly appreciated. Will you kindly permit me to place on record how very much we esteem the hearty collaboration of your good self and your staff in the building of the first airship for the British Navy, and to state how confident we are that a considerable amount of the success which has been achieved is due to the invaluable assistance so readily rendered at all times by yourself, your officers and your men.’

  Yours sincerely,

  J. McKechnie116

  For obvious reasons the company was very keen to develop the best possible relationship with the Royal Navy in general and with Murray Sueter in particular; it was just as anxious as Sueter that the airship being constructed at Barrow would merely be the first in a lucrative line of repeat contracts. Sueter made repeated attempts to convince the First Lord of the Admiralty, Reginald McKenna, that this should be the case, but was advised that the First Sea Lord, Sir Arthur Wilson,117 was very much against airships, believing that they could easily be destroyed by a ‘squib’ fired by pistol from an aeroplane at close range, or by means of a fishing line and hooks raked along the gasbag.118 Indeed, somewhat dishearteningly, he received more than one letter from Rear Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, the Controller of the Navy and Third Sea Lord, during this period, alerting him to the fact that others in high authority at the Admiralty did not believe in airships.119

  [Author’s note: Wilson (1842–1921) won the VC at the battle of El Teb in 1884, but was not by nature inclined to favour technical progress, for example, describing the early submarines as, ‘underhand, unfair and damned un-English’.

  Sueter praised Fisher and Jellicoe highly for their support, but had little time for most of the other Sea Lords. He also felt that three First Lords of the Admiralty had been particularly ‘air-minded’, the competent McKenna (1908–1911), the mercurial Churchill (1911–1915) and the philosophical Arthur Balfour (1915–16). On the other hand, Churchill, though a supporter of Sueter and his dynamism, was not blind to his faults, writing to the First Sea Lord, Prince Louis of Battenberg on 12 December 1912, ‘Captain Sueter requires supervision.’]120

  On 25 May, preparations were made to return the airship to its shed; the first attempt at 5 am had to be abandoned due to the wind picking up. The crew tried again in the afternoon, when the wind had abated:

  ‘
Airship slipped from mooring post; drifting towards northern bank of dock. Steamboat made fast a line to starboard bow of airship to haul her to northward, but could make very little impression. By using warp, forward propellers and the steamboat hauled airship clear. Airship then hauled over towards shed, using warp and propellers, rudders amidships. The airship’s bows were hauled close in to the entrance of the shed, but with the wind being from her port bow to her port beam, considerable difficulty was experienced in getting the airship in line with the shed. The thwarts, specially strengthened, of the steadying boats, to which the shore hawsers were secured, started to pull out; spars were improvised from the shore hawsers to the heels of gondola struts, which averted the collapse of the boats and letting go of the hawsers. The force of the wind on her port side caused the ship to heel fifteen to twenty degrees to starboard. The stern of the ship was eventually, with much difficulty, hauled in line, and the ship secured to the jackstay, guys from the top of the ship got hold of, and the ship righted. The ship was then hauled along the jackstay into the shed, slight difficulty being caused by one or two jackstay outriggers being carried away. Airship housed in shed 3 pm, total damage, a hole in the forward gondola by wooden distance pieces of steadying boat.’121

  But it soon became clear that HMA No 1 was overweight and incapable of static flight, even with the power provided by a pair of 200 hp (148kW) 8-cylinder Wolseley engines driving a pair of four-bladed propellers to port and starboard, and a twin-bladed propeller to the rear. Gross lift was estimated to be 19.665 long tons (44,048lbs/19,980kg), with the weight being 19.589 tons (43,876lbs/19,902kg), not including fuel or crew. The resulting disposable lift of 0.076 tons (77.22kg/170.24lbs) was utterly negligible. The options were to insert another bay and increase the lifting capability, or to lighten ship. The latter was chosen, the external keel and many other items were removed – including the water recovery apparatus, the mooring chain and the anchor! The disposable lift was thereby increased to 3.21 tons (3,261kg/7,190lbs), which would be enough for trial flights and training.

  Mayfly at Cavendish Dock. (VSEL; now part of BAE Systems)

  Murray Sueter paid tribute to Usborne’s work in this connection: ‘The late Commander Neville Usborne also schemed out a very efficient water-recovering apparatus by cooling the exhaust gases of a petrol engine. I believe he was the first in this country to experiment in a practical manner in this direction. In this way we regained in water a very high percentage of the petrol consumed by cooling – over a large surface – the high-temperature exhaust gases from the petrol motor.’122

  Sueter reported to the Admiralty on 20 August that he had refused to accept the airship from Vickers, stating:

  ‘On Thursday I balanced the airship when floating freely in air in the shed and suggested some alterations. On Saturday evening I again balanced the airship in the shed and found that we could reach 500 feet altitude with the airship, but would only have some 150lbs of ballast for discharge in fore gondola. This I considered inadequate and refused to accept the airship. The framework, as altered, supports the gondolas in the air without any sign of the girders buckling. At a conference with Messrs Vickers representatives this morning, I stated that the Admiralty requirements by specification were one ton petrol and one ton ballast with the ship trimmed properly. Messrs Vickers are now considering what to do. It is not proposed to accept the airship until the lift by specification is obtained.’123

  Another problem as a result of the delays and alterations was that the airship now needed to be inflated with ‘new hydrogen’. Sueter concluded his report by asking if the Admiralty would pay for this, or should the extra cost of some £150 be charged to Vickers, who was now making it quite plain to him that the company was, ‘considerably out of pocket’.

  The aviation press reported as follows:

  ‘Our Poor Naval Airship. In spite of hopes that the naval airship might have been given another airing, she is still kept most religiously inside the shed at Barrow, and rumour has it that, as a result of a visit of the Advisory Committee on Aeronautics, the great envelope of the airship will be cut in half and considerably lengthened in order that she may carry more weight. Apparently she is not quite capable of lifting the twenty tons for which she was designed, and either the buoyancy will have to be increased, or the weight will have to be cut down.’124

  On 24 September 1911, she was taken out of the giant shed again, tail first. Just as the nose was clearing the hangar doors, a strong gust of wind caught the massive airship and rolled Mayfly virtually on her beam-ends. Shortly after righting herself, the hull of the airship abruptly tore apart forward of the rear car. Her back was broken – overstressed without the stiffening and support of the keel. HMA No 1 was a wreck, and became the subject of much negative publicity about being a waste of an eventual total of £100,000 of taxpayers’ money:

  ‘It scarcely needed the lesson of the collapse of Naval Dirigible No 1 to demonstrate the elementary fact that the big dirigible is a failure. We had learnt that from the experience gained with the Morning Post Lebaudy and the almost equally unfortunate Clément-Bayard, so that we can scarcely feel surprised at this latest catastrophe. On this side of the Channel the dirigible has been, not to put too fine a point upon it, an utter failure; and on the Continent it has been very little better in spite of the long voyages under favourable conditions which have been accomplished. Before the aeroplane became the highly efficient organism it is today, it was natural that the lighter-than-air type of flying machine should have attracted a great deal of attention from those who were seeking dominion over the air. The type of craft evolved was admittedly crude and cumbrous, but it was the best we could do, and at any rate it was capable of making ascents, and in good weather, of being navigated to a set course instead of being at the absolute mercy of the lightest air that blew. The school which believed in the gasbag as the airship of the future held, and rightly, that experiment and research might quite possibly lead to the evolution of a type which should be capable of safe navigation in all but the worst of weather conditions. But they had not reckoned with the rapid rise of the heavier-than-air type – a rise which has resulted in the complete overshadowing of the airship by the aeroplane. So completely has the one outbid the other for supremacy, that we might almost say that the dirigible of anything like the dimensions of the unfortunate naval craft which was wrecked on Sunday, is discredited and obsolete. We do not blame the naval authorities for building this vessel. It must be remembered that she was laid down two years ago, when it was impossible to say wherein lay the future of flying. Continental powers were experimenting with airships of similar type, and to have held our hands while possible rivals were attempting to build up aerial navies would have been folly of the worst description. But things have progressed apace in the period that has elapsed since the navy embarked upon airship construction, and no amount of prescience could have foretold that aerial science would stand where it is today. Now that the lesson has been so drastically driven home, it may be hoped that our authorities will keep in mind the excellent maxim of the card-player relative to the cutting of losses. They have been generous in their allocation of money for the building of this experimental craft. It has proved a failure and the money has been wasted, albeit through no fault of anyone. It is just as necessary today, as it was when it was decided to build the Vickers craft, that we should keep up with the rest of the nations. They have practically abandoned the gasbag, and are concentrating all their energies upon the development of the military aeroplane. Therefore, we trust that our own authorities will rise to the needs of the situation, and alter the direction of their experimental work.’

  HMA No 1 lies with its back broken at Barrow in September 1911. (Ces Mowthorpe Collection)

  The writer went on to add:

  ‘We have been careful to confine our condemnatory remarks to large craft, because we are not convinced that the lighter-than-air type is altogether without possibilities, but if it has any future at all,
we believe that it lies in craft of less ambitious dimensions than those of the unwieldy Zeppelins and Lebaudys. Certainly, while the latter have been leaving their bones dotted over the face of Germany and France, the smaller vessels of the Beta and Gamma type have achieved some small measure of success. It may, therefore, be advisable to go on experimenting with them for a time, though we confess to being more than a little sceptical even with regard to that.’125

  Fortunately there were no fatalities, most of the crew had managed to dive overboard as the airship reared and plunged. The report of the Court of Inquiry into the accident, which was presided over by Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, CMG, CVO, no longer exists. It has been noted that Sturdee had no previous experience of aeronautics and that his first remark on seeing the wreck of the airship was, ‘Ah! The work of a lunatic!’ But then, which reasonably senior officer had any relevant knowledge at that time apart from Templer or Capper? It could not be expected that the navy would have welcomed the army delving into its affairs, however sensible such an idea might have been. In fact two years before, on 2 August 1909, R.B. Haldane replied in the House of Commons to a request for greater inter-service aeronautical co-operation by saying that he could not, ‘see what the distinguished soldier who is at the head of the balloon school of construction has to do with the work of the Admiralty in constructing a rigid dirigible. The Admiralty will only be too glad to see him if he has anything to say to them, and he will be only too glad to give the Admiralty any information he can; but I do not see any material connexion between the two different pieces of work at the present moment’.126 A statement which is quite breathtaking in its complacency and imbecility, given that the Balloon School was the only other governmental repository of knowledge and experience of the operation of lighter-than-air craft over the previous thirty years. Nor was the Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, established in 1909, ever asked by the Admiralty to examine the details of the design.