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The R-100 was an airship which was the successful private counterpart to the British government R-101 project, a competition designed to highlight the so-called benefits of state controlled "Big Science" projects (cf Concorde )
Established at the Cardington hangars in Bedfordshire England, two teams, one from Vickers, the leading aircraft manufacturers of the day, and a team led by the Air Ministry competed to build a vessel capable of flying from the UK to India.
As with the Concorde, the goal was also to eventually create a regular transatlantic service.
As part of its trials the R-100 made a transatlantic trip to Canada in 1930. It could carry 100 passengers at 80 mph (128 km/h).
When the R-101 crashed and burned because of its poor design and excess weight the Air Ministry ordered all R-100 flights stopped. Despite the quality of its design and the proven excellence of its flight handling the government decided to sell the R-100 for scrap in 1931.
The R-100 team included Nevil Shute, as a stress engineer, and one of the finest aircraft engineers in history, Sir Barnes Wallis.
The tale of the design of the R-100 and its superiority to the R-101 is told with great clarity in Shutes's Slide rule; the autobiography of an engineer, which was first published in 1954.
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