Thread by @R34Airship

Thread: Just after midday, 100 years ago today, Airship R.34 set off from RAF Howden on a training & test flight following repairs/mods, her 1st flight for months. Crew incl. 8 trainee navigation officers and her new captain of 6 days Fl Lt Hadley V. Drew #R34100

In addition to inadequate charts, inexperienced officers & incomplete mooring equipment, the crew were to discover, too late, a faulty wavemeter in their vital radio equipment, perhaps the most important factor in what was to follow #R34100

Also no one had informed the crew that the call sign that would be used to contact them during the flight had, in fact, been changed, a mistake only realised later by the duty signaller at Howden.

As Patrick Abbott describes it in Airship, his book on R.34: ‘In the meantime, this chain of errors remained undiscovered as the airship circled the field & completed the preliminary tests before moving off towards Hull, Spurn Point & the North Sea.’ More #R34100 later

By this stage of the day, almost a comedy of errors was underway, with Howden’s messages to R.34 not recognised on the airship due to the problem with the changed call sign, & their messages to Howden sent on the wrong frequency due to the faulty wavemeter on R.34’s radio #R34100

Back at Howden, writes Abbott: ‘there was no immediate concern over the failure of communications, and it was nearly 4 o’clock before Air Commodore Maitland was told of this.’ He immediately ordered that R.34 be recalled & that that signal be repeated until understood #R34100

By this time, the R.34 was well out to sea &, even when the signal was received & recorded, both the radio crew & the captain of R.34 assumed that it was intended for another airship, R.32, also out on a training flight & they ignored it #R34100

Around 5pm, when they received Howden’s radio message again, they began to realise that it was actually intended for them and Fl Lt Drew immediately ordered the crew to turn the airship around and return to their Howden base #R34100

Drew’s suspicions were confirmed soon afterwards when a radio message was heard confirming that R.32 was already arriving at the base & wouldn’t have required a recall #R34100

By 19.30, with help from Flamborough wireless station, R.34’s radio operators finally made contact with Howden. The faulty apparatus had meant they were transmitting on a wavelength of 2030 metres instead of the regulation 1300 metres #R34100

Drew gave R.34’s position as about 30 miles from Spurn Head, at the mouth of the Humber, & he maintained his course for Howden in the face of worsening weather #R34100

A probably mis-identified sighting of what they though was the Spurn lighthouse probably provided Drew with false reassurance that the R.34 was on track for Howden & he passed command to his 2nd Officer, Harold Luck, & retired to his hammock. #R34100

Drew’s orders were to wake him when the R.34 crossed the coast & the woke him accordingly 40 minutes later. Another misleading lighthouse led them to believe they were over the Humber when they were probably 40 miles further north, near Flamborough #R34100

While the captain had been resting, weather conditions had deteriorated rapidly - Abbott’s book describes ‘low cloud, rain & strengthening winds’ - all making navigation and steering more difficult. #R34100

Yet another message was received at 22.05 ordering R.34 to return. Believing R.34 to be over the relatively low, flat Wolds further south, Drew took her down through cloud to 1200 ft but saw high ground less than 400 ft below #R34100

Returning to a safe altitude, Drew, despite this observation of hills which ought not to have been there if the airship was roughly where he thought it to be, ignored what he thought was an inaccurate radio bearing from the Flamborough station #R34100

This map of the area from Patrick Abbott’s book shows the key features and the degree to which R.34 was likely to be off course (compare Flamborough where they were likely to be with Spurn & the Humber where they thought they were). #R34100

The beginning of the end for Airship R.34 kicked off just after the coming midnight exactly 100 years ago. This thread will pick up that story tomorrow (I’m not tweeting all night), 100 years to the day after R.34’s final demise. Thanks if you’ve followed so far today. #R34100

To resume the tale of R.34’s final 24 hours on the centenary of that sad day, the rest of this thread will be picking up on incidents from midnight on 27th Jan 1921 #R34100

Midnight 27-28th Jan 1921 - the watch changed. Patrick Abbott’s book on R.34 personalises the account thus: ‘the men going off climbed into their sleeping bags to snatch 4 hours’ sleep. One of them, A.C.2 Johnson, delayed a few minutes to drink some cocoa...’ #R34100

‘...before he also swung himself up into his hammock. Just as he did so, the forward car scraped over rough moorland & there was a harsh grinding sound, repeated almost immediately as the after engine car also struck the ground.’ #R34100

At exactly 00:10 on 28th January, R.34 had been caught in a sudden downdraught that pushed her into an unseen hillside - speculated to be near Guisborough Moor in the Cleveland Hills. Contact was light and she effectively bounced off. But... #R34100

...after the engines were stopped, ballast dropped & the ship allowed to drift astern, although it was determine that damage was remarkably light, the critical damage was the shearing of front and after propellers down to stubs. #R34100

Unfortunately, the shortening of these two propellers reduced by half the power available to R.34, already recognised as underpowered by Sunbeam Maori engines that failed consistently to deliver their maximum output. The 2 wing engines were restarted to push back... #R34100

... against the strong winds that were pushing R.34 back out over the North Sea. This was only achievable by running the remaining 2 engines at full power, which they did for perhaps the 1st time! #R34100

The wind was blowing at up to 30 mph at 1500 feet. It was at this point that Drew, the captain, despite his inexperience, seems to have displayed considerable skill & judgment. The wind was weaker towards sea level & blowing in a more favourable direction... #R34100

Drew took R.34 as low as safely possible & set a course westward again. Through venting of hydrogen & keeping the ship at around 500 feet, he was able to avoid the worst of the gale. R.34 was thereby able to make slow forward progress #R34100

It seems that consideration was given to heading for Pulham air station but the lack of a mooring coupling in the nose meant that R.34 wouldn’t have been able to use the safe mooring on the Pulham mooring mast, so he decided to continue back to Howden #R34100

As the crippled airship limped slowly and unevenly towards home, the wireless operators were able to re-establish contact with Howden. Air Commodore Maitland then arranged for 2 destroyers to be sent from Harwich & a tug from Hull as support. #R34100

Nothing more could be done now other than to await events as the ship made her way laboriously towards the Humber estuary, other than for Howden air station radio operators sending the R.34 regular weather reports. More on the story towards mid-day #R34100

Having reached the mouth of the Humber estuary by mid-day, R.34 headed slowly for Hull, which she reached by 13:00 hours. Now only 20 miles from her base at Howden, her slow rate of progress meant she would take another 3 hours to cover this relatively short distance. #R34100

By 16:00 hrs, R.34 had struggled slowly home to the Howden base to make what would be, sadly, her final landing. It was the early dark of a wet and squally winter’s afternoon as she was lowered ‘into the hands of the 400-strong ground-crew’. #R34100

The ground-crew led her, ‘rolling and pitching’ towards the safety of one of Howden’s two larger airship sheds. They were unable to manoeuvre her to safety inside the shed doors due to the ‘boisterous & uncertain wind’. #R34100

The vast airship shed and, ironically, its giant windscreens nearby created ‘strong & erratic eddies’ in the strong winds, causing R.34 to tilt & twist almost uncontrollably. R.34 was over 640ft long with a volume of c.55000 cubic metres. Imagine handling that in a storm #R34100

One gust caused the aft of the ship to rise 60ft into the air, with some ground-crew still hanging on, with the others struggling to stop her breaking away. There was more damage to front & rear cars, the rudder jammed, & controls became inoperative #R34100

At this point, Air Commodore Maitalnd on the ground gave the order to abandon ship, following which she was led back to morning blocks to be fastened by a similar 3 wire system, which had ironically served her so well at Mineola in New York. #R34100

However, in the appalling wet, windy & dark conditions, there was further damage. The forward gasbags punctured & the forward car became partially detached. Eventually, the exhausted crew secured her to the mooring blocks where she ought to have been safe for the night #R34100

No doubt all present hoped that R.34 could now be housed & repaired once calm returned. But sadly that was optimistic and this was would prove to be her final few hours. Please rejoin this thread for the conclusion of R.34’s story, my 2 year tweeting of her story and #R34100.

The storm continued on through the night of 28th into 29th January 1921. Through the night, R.34 settled into the ground (punctured forward gasbags, remember?) and her bows were smashed in. The photos taken that morning show what looks like massive damage... #R34100

In ‘Airship’, Patrick Abbott describes the scene: ‘In the chill light of morning it was obvious that R.34 would never fly again. So complete was her destruction so far was she beyond repair, that within 3 or 4 days, her carcase had been dismembered by workmen.‘ #R34100

Other photos, on the @Airshipsonline website & more widely on the web, show clearly how significantly R.34 had been damaged overnight while apparently safely moored. #R34100

Over the next few days, the fabric was stripped off, equipment removed, & workmen chopped up the framework with axes to be sold as scrap. Unless there were photos taken of the dismantling work (I’ve never seen one), this may well be the last photo taken of R.34 #R34100

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