Airship on a Shoestring the Story of R 100

Unless you're into airships, you've likely never heard of the R-100. It was a British Zeppelin built in the 1920s. The R-100 was built by private industry, its rival, the R-101, was built by the government. Both airships construction was funded by the government. the R-101 crashed on its first flight to India, killing 48 of the 52 onboard, including Lord Thompson the British Air Minister. Its story is much better known. If you're interested in the story behind the R-100, this book delivers. If you're the kind of person who wants the engineering side of the story, that is here, as Anderson covers the problems that had to be overcome to get the R-100 airborne. if you're interested in the people behind the machine, Anderson gives you that as well. There's quite a cast of characters here, including Nevil Shute Norway, later to become famous as the author of On The Beach. Shute was deeply involved in the building of the R-100, initially as the chief stress engineer. Like any good history, Anderson gives a taste of the background of his story. This is not a flashy book, but it is solid, and if you are interested in airships you ought to add it to your library. Even if your interest in history is more general, this is worth reading.

This is a very interesting book about a bygone era, the era of the big dirigibles. The book contains a lot of details about not only the R-100 but its sister ship, the R-101, which was unfortunately destroyed with the death of almost everyone on board. A fascinating read from an historical and an engineering perspective.

In this book John Anderson presents many technical details of the R100 never before widely published. It includes many pictures and diagrams which are very interesting. When you look at a picture of the nearly completed rigid frame and then look at a close-up of one of the numerous joints in the structure, you get some feel for the magnitude of the whole undertaking. The diagrams of the passenger and crew quarters clearly show the limited, Spartan accomodations which required a 700 foot airship to get them off the ground. The section based on Nevil Shute Norway's log of the flight to Montreal is most enlightening. While includiong a good introduction to the British hopes for airships in the 1920s, the book probably is of more interest to those with some familiarity who want a more detailed trestment of the R100.

A wonderful study of R.100. While Slide Rule gives Norway's remembrances 30 years after the facts, Airship on a Shoestring is a well researched account of the airship not tainted by nostalgia or bitter feelings. Add R100 in Canada by Barry Countryman and you have the best picture of the R.100 availably. For perspective I will also recommend The British Rigid Airship, 1908-1931: A Study in Weapons Policy by Robin Higham.

Lots of information about an obscure, but fascinating aspect of flight. Well written and enjoyable.

Excellent book for airship enthusiasts with new information about the British zeppelin R100, the Vickers team and the ship's voyage to Canada. Useful for researchers as well as being an enjoyable read.

John did a great job on this book. Part of the Nevil Shute history set!

An interesting read about the era of airships.

John Anderson has done a masterful job of telling an important part of aviation history. Few know of the amazing engineering accomplishments of a handful of people in the 1920's who dared to dream of "ships of the sky" that would carry hundreds of passengers thousands of miles. This book tells of the hundreds of innovations, and of the fortitude of the engineers, financiers, and airship crew who undertook this competition between private enterprise and government to see who could build the best airship. Weaved into this story are historic figures like Nevil Shute (Norway), Barnes Wallis, and others who played important roles in this enterprise. In spite of its tragic conclusion, this story is inspiring because of the amazing accomplishments of a relatively few dedicated people. If you are interested in aviation, this is a must read.

A fascinating account of the R100's story that avoids the temptation of following Slide Rule's OTT criticism of the rival R101. Brief and to the point.

The tale of th R101 has been told by several people – Peter Masefield ‘To ride the storm’, Geoffery Chamberlain ‘Airships Cardington’ and Nevil Shute ‘Slide Rule’ This new book is the first one to focus solely on the R100 and it is well researched and very well written. I was particularly interested because I’ve read ‘Slide Rule’ several times and worked at Cardington for 40 years. ‘Slide Rule’ is a bit polemical which this book seeks to balance. Although Shute’s account is generally accurate as far as it goes, it does not emphasis enough that both airships were defective in various ways, in particular with regard to the outer cover, a weakness for them both. Both were taken unnecessarily into severe weather conditions by the same captain (Scott) (although there were political pressures on him the second time) and the second time he was unlucky. The author has written an excellent biography of Nevil Shute (‘Parallel Motion’) which is also well worth reading if you are interested in that author. The only criticism I would have of the current book is that some of the technical explanations of the airship structure would be better if illustrated with some diagrams.

This is a thoroughly researched, well referenced and really engaging account of R100. There are lots of resources describing R101, but if you've only ever read about R100 in "Slide Rule", this will fill in the gaps and correct some potential misconceptions. And it's a great read as well. Many thanks to the author.

Very interesting book;I had never questioned Nevil Shute's account of the R101 disaster, as written in his autobiography Slide Rule,but after reading this I will definitely have to think again.