Tuesday 3rd February, 7.30pm – Millgate Museum
Joint Lecture with Newark Archaeological & Local History Society
Imperial Airships – Alan Brittan
Joint Lecture with Newark Archaeological & Local History Society
Imperial Airships – Alan Brittan
Alan Brittan is an Industrial Archaeologist, who has made a special study of the Imperial
Airships Scheme proposed in 1924, which on a global scale, was the largest project of its kind.
Two ships were proposed, as a competition between two design teams but it was still seen
that both of these ships were unique prototypes.
Not until the Hindenburg and Graf Zeppelin II some seven years later would newly designed
commercial passenger airships of this scale take to the skies.
On completion in October 1929, the R101 ship was the largest man made object ever to fly, the
only competition was from Germany with the smaller LZ127 "Graf Zeppelin".
The talk will cover the design and construction of the two ships, and their test flights, leading to
the ultimate destruction of the R101, and the abandoning of the project.
the ultimate destruction of the R101, and the abandoning of the project.
