Why Nevil Shute should not be linked to the R101 disaster
I very much enjoyed the article (Press September 2) regarding Nevil Shute and his historic connection to York. However, I must take issue regarding the production teams concerned with the manufacture of the R100 and R101.
Barnes Wallace and Nevil Shute bore no responsibility for the design and construction of R101; in fact I believe that the former warned against the additional sections added to that airship.
The Air Ministry were determined that their model should be bigger than the privately-managed and produced R100. The ensuing catastrophe with R101 led to the cancellation of all airship development, which ironically has resurfaced in recent years with the advent of Hybrid Air Vehicle Co and their exciting Airlander10 project.
The historical facts are….. His Majesty's Airship R100 was a privately-designed and built British rigid airship made as part of a two-ship competition to develop a commercial airship service for use on British Empire routes as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme. The other airship, the R101, was built by the British Air Ministry, but both airships were funded by the Government.
R100 was built by the Airship Guarantee Company, a specially-created subsidiary of the armaments firm Vickers-Armstrongs, led by Commander Dennis Burney. The design team was headed by Barnes Wallis, later famous for his invention of the bouncing bomb. The design team also included Nevil Shute Norway as the senior stress engineer.
R100 first flew in December 1929. It made a series of trial flights and a successful return crossing of the Atlantic in July - August 1930, but following the crash of R101 in October 1930 the Imperial Airship Scheme was terminated and R100 was broken up for scrap.’
Martin Smith
Main Street
Elvington
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How about a plaque for Nevil Shute?
‘The York man who made his mark before Spark’ is the headline of the double-page spread in The Press, September 2. After ‘Spark’ you could have added ‘…you having a lark?’
Thanks to Ivan Martin for an interesting article on Nevil (Novel, even!) Shute, whom I always considered something of an enigma, having read his autobiographical ‘Slide Rule’ and novels as well as film adaptations.
He is celebrated in the Pioneers display at the Yorkshire Air Museum. Minor quibble with the line ‘…But their later R101 airship on its maiden voyage in October 1930…’. The ill-fated R101 wasn’t the work of Barnes Wallis, Nevil Shute and team. The R101 was government-sponsored, designed by a whole different team from the private-venture (though government funded) R100 constructed at Howden.
What a missed opportunity by City of York Council not to save and restore ‘Reynard’s Garage’ as was proposed; that’s councils for you.
I had a friend who was an aviation journalist and editor as well as something of a romantic whose father worked for the Yorkshire Evening Press a very long time ago. After we’d supped our pints in the nearby Red Lion we’d walk round to the Airspeed building and my colleague would take a deep breath and declare that he could ‘smell the dope' (a sort of varnish for fabric-covered aircraft). I sometimes wondered if it was beer and not dope my companion smelt!
I think there are Nevil Shute (Norway) plaques elsewhere but how about one for York - so long as it’s not screwed on to a shipping container in ‘you know where’!
Derek Reed
Derek Reed
Middlethorpe Drive
York
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