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Report - - cardington hangers and the story of R101...july 2010 | Military Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - cardington hangers and the story of R101...july 2010

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tommo

shire lad born & breeding
28DL Full Member
had a nice walk round the hangers with klempner69 and skeleton key, great day and a fantastic location cheers guys



HISTORY :

taken from the air ship heritage site Airship Heritage Trust there where 3 big air ship hangers built in the uk, one at cardington, howden and pulham but only cardington survived

The story starts not with the village but with the Shorts Brothers Engineering Company. Having won a contract for the construction of an airship in 1916, the original design team had set up offices in a private house in Hampstead, London. In September of 1916 they decided to move to Bedford, choosing this market town for its sufficiency of high grade light engineering works and its population of about 35,000. Outside the town, at Putnoe, was a stretch of farmland being used as an aerodrome for the Royal Flying Corps as part of the United Kingdom's defence network against the Zeppelins. Within sight of Putnoe was, and still is, the village of Cardington.

The man who headed up the enterprise for the Shorts Company was a young man by the name of Claude Lipscomb. At 29, Claude had already served his apprenticeship at Woolwich Arsenal but had joined Shorts at the outbreak of the war in 1914 attracted by the prospect of technological advancement in the new aviation world. Claude set up his first drawing office in a loft of the coach repair shop in Bedford. Having been attacked by Zeppelin Raiders that September and with the threat of the new Super Zeppelins, agreement was reached to develop our own ships. With its gentle prevailing wind, the site of farmland south west of Bedford and the site of Cardington was chosen.



Shed Internal Dimensions:
Length: 812 ft
Width: 180 ft
Height: 157 ft
Total weight of steel: 4,000 tons


The Project.

Cardington having been chosen, the airship project was begun and proposals were framed as to what was needed in the way of resources to actually build airships of this scale. When the proposal was reviewed, it was realised that it could take an act of Parliament to release the thousands of tons of steel to construct the hanger alone!

The shed was the biggest to be built in Britain at that time. It was to provide a minimum of space for two ships under one cantilever roof. The dimensions were such that it would be possible to build ships that at that time would in no way be inferior to the biggest Zeppelins. Additional steel was needed for the enormous windbreaks which were set up at both ends of the shed. These screens, as long as the shed itself, were designed to protect an airship during the time it was being manoeuvred in to and out of the sheds from either end.



The first ship to come out of the Cardington airship facility was the R31. The ship was commissioned only 5 days before the Armistice on 11th November 1918, and exactly two years and two months from the time that Claude Lipscomb had set up in Bedford. The shed was an impressive construction and design project, admirable even in retrospect in a time of high powered computers and modern communication. Today it is easy to forget that it was hand designed and hand built. Cardington became one of the World's best airship facilities. Due to the economic depression of the post war years, the Airship station was closed in 1921 after the construction of the R38 and the scrapping of the R37. However the station was reopened in 1924 following the announcement of the Imperial Airship Service and the undertaking of the construction of, amongst others, the R101. For communications, a wireless station and Cardington control tower was constructed in 1928 behind the Administration block.

The huge airship mast was constructed for the civil programme in 1926. 202 feet high and 70 feet in diameter at the base, the tower was the first ever cantilever mooring mast to be built. It was demolished in 1943 to help the war effort.

Discussions in Parliament following the crash of the R101 in October 1930 led to the Committee on National Expenditure's final decision to dismantle the R100 in shed no.2. In 1931, the Station was nearly closed, with only a skeleton maintenance staff of some 44 people remaining. However work soon resumed with resurrection of the old WW1 national defence system of barage balloons as a deterrent to the German Bombers.


Cardington mast and winch houses under construction The War Years

With the threat of war looming at the end of the 1930s Cardington was back in business with the development and creation off thousands of kite balloons. It sounded simple but every balloon had to be large enough to carry a couple of miles of steel cable and required a trained crew who could monitor the balloon 24 hours a day. Also required for each was a winch and motor transport. Preparation for meeting this demand started in November 1936 when the station became known as Royal Airforce Station Cardington. At its peak Cardington was producing some 26 balloons a week. Simultaneously the station was a training centre and by 1943 some 10,000 balloon operators and a further 12,000 driver/operators had been trained


Today

It's all still here. With the exception of the windbreaks and the addition of many more houses in Shortstown and the impressive second shed from Pulham, the whole site is complete as it was constructed and planned back in 1916. It is also intended that airship activity of a kind will return one day.

Airships have also returned to Cardington in the form of ATG Group who are developing the AT 10 airship and the huge SKYCAT. The prototype SKYKITTEN can be seen on occasion flying from shed number 1 where the R101 was constructed.

The visit of the first Zeppelin in 80 years was cememorated by the visit of the Zeppelin NT as part of it's 2008 tour.

Cardington is ever changing and shed 2 has been leased out to a film company and is enjoying a second life as a "sound stage". Shed 1 is in need of repair but still housing limited airship and lighter than air activities.

Planning permission has been granted to the area surrounding the north side of the shed, and around the original adminsitration block. This is seen as the imposing buidling on the A600 road between Shortstown village and the village of Cotton End.

some great old pics

HK1601-001-1.jpg


shed1.jpg

also found a great video inside No1 shed Redirect Notice




also was used by take that in may 2009 for rehearsals before there uk tour
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tommo

shire lad born & breeding
28DL Full Member
On with the inside

me in the middle for size
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tin of old army grease
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