The Titanic was not the only ship whose designers and their masters showed
such hubris that was properly rewarded. Two passenger ships were built to
the highest technology of the time to tie the British Empire together.
There were two, one designed and built in a government yard, the other in a
private yard, on the theory that the government’s design would show the
defects of the private enterprise system. Of course, the ships had to be
certified fit, which was done by the same experts who designed the
government’s ship. The private ship made its trials and its
intercontinental trial voyage with little problem, nothing that wasn’t
handled while afloat. The government’s ship, well. Despite all the
publicity that she was technologically advanced, she was enough overweight
that she couldn’t carry the fuel for the intercontinental trip. So they
spliced her in the middle to give additional capacity for fuel, and they
did that job in a hurry so she could carry the Minister in charge, the one
whose career depended on showing she was the better ship, to a conference
in India, accompanied by the chief designers, etc. She didn’t get very far.
Imagine a ship with the linear dimensions of the Titanic being sailed at
full speed through a dark, rainy, gusty storm only twice her length away
from French soil. She ran aground and killed almost all aboard. Peculiarly
enough, the survivors were mostly of the black gang, plus one design
engineer passenger.

The ship was R-101, an airship the size of an ocean liner built to carry
mail and important people around the British Empire in 1929. These ships
displaced only 150 tons (it takes a lot of air to weigh 150 tons). The
private ship was R-100, built of tubes made of spirally-wound and riveted
duralumium. The government ship had H-beam dural girders, or similar.
Vickers had decided that power steering engines were not necessary, but the
government ship had power controls, at some tons extra weight, so it was
said. Anyway, the government ship was overweight and couldn’t carry enough
fuel for the required intercontinental flight. So, after her trials, they
spliced an additional bay into the center to provide enough additional lift
for more fuel. Then they flew her for display purposes, without another
round of proper trials, loaded the Air Minister of the Labour Government
and his cronies and designers, etc., aboard, and set off for India.

They were crossing a range of 1,500 foot hills near the center of France,
flying at a maximum altitude of 3,000 feet. They couldn’t fly higher
because at that altitude the gas bags were fully inflated, so that if they
went higher the safety valves would open and spill the excess gas, so that
then they would have to drop ballast upon returning to normal altitudes,
and they had only so much hydrogen and only so much water ballast to lose
en route. The ballast question was so important that the engines had
condensers on the exhausts to condense the water in the exhaust to
compensate for the weight of the fuel burnt, so they would not have to
valve off hydrogen.

The ship was pitching in the storm, the helmsmen had just taken over the
wheels (one for steering, one for pitch). She got her nose down, the
planesman cranked the elevator hard up to stay away from the ground, and
the structure of the new bay buckled. The flying officers (all of whom
died) ordered the engines stopped, evidently hoping to bring her to ground
safely, but she hit hard and burst into flame. The engineers in the rear
engine cars jumped to the ground and ran, and the one surviving engineering
passenger broke out through the wreckage before the flames got to him.

The subsequent investigation was a whitewash of governmental policy. The
analysis by E. F. Spanner (The Tragedy of R-101) is probably a better
explanation, which I have followed here. Testimony showed that, with the
new bay inserted, the calculated factor of safety for the maximum nose-up
elevator position was only 1.0 with assumed 100% joint efficiency! And, of
course, the airworthiness of airships board who certified her were her
largely her own designers. Talk about hubris!

John Forester 408-734-9426
forester@johnforester.com 726 Madrone Ave
http://www.johnforester.com Sunnyvale, CA 94086-3041