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- For the NYC Subway car, see R33 (New York City Subway car)
The R33 was a British airship that served successfully for 10 years and survived one of the most alarming and heroic incidents in airship history when she was ripped from her mast in a gale. She was nicknamed the "Pulham Pig" by locals and is immortalised in the village sign for Pulham Market.
History
The R33 (and R34) were both in the design stage in 1916 when a German Zeppelin, the L-33 was brought down on English soil. Despite the best efforts of her crew she was captured near intact with engines in good order. For 5 months, the L-33 was carefully examined to uncover the Germans secrets.
The existing design was adapted to generate a new airship based on the German craft and the construction was given to Armstrong-Whitworth at Barlow, Yorkshire. Assembly began in 1918. R33 was semi-streamlined fore and aft, the middle section being straight-sided. The control car was well forward on the ship, separated sufficiently from the nearby engine to stop vibrations affecting the sensitive radio detection finding and communication equipment.
She first flew on 6 March 1919, and was sent to the airship station at Pulham Market in Norfolk. Between then and October 14, R33 made 23 flights totalling 337 hours flying time. One of these, a flight promoting "Victory Bonds" even included a brass band playing in the top machine gun post!
In 1920 she was "demilitarised" and given over to civilian work with the civil registration GFAAG. This work consisted of trials of new mast mooring techniques to the mast erected at Pulham. On one occasion winds of 80 mph were successfully overcome while moored. Another experiment was an ascent carrying a pilotless Sopwith Camel which was successfully launched over the Yorkshire Moors. After an overhaul, R33 was based at Croydon moored to a portable mast. In June 1921, R33 was used for traffic observation by the Metropolitan Police, and in July she appeared in the Hendon Air Pageant before flying to Cardington where she was shedded for three years.
On August 24 1921, the R38 disaster put a stop to all British airship development. Military airships were scrapped, but as a civilian airship R33 was mothballed instead. In 1925, after nearly 4 years inaction the reconditioned R33 emerged from her shed at Cardington.
On the night of 16th/17th April, the R33 was ripped from her mooring on the mast at Pulham during a gale by a strong gust of wind, and drifted away with only a small "anchor-watch" onboard. Her nose partially collapsed and the first gas cell deflated leaving her low in the bow. Wind and rain blowing into the bow added to her tilt down. The crew on board started the engines gaining some height and rigged a cover for the bow section, but the R33 was blown out over the North Sea. A Royal Navy vessel was readied and left the nearby port of Lowestoft lest the R33 came down in the sea. The local lifeboat launched but was driven back in the face of the weather conditions.
Some five hours after the initial break from the mast, the R33 was under control but still being blown towards the Continent. As she approached the Dutch coast the R33 was ordered to land at Cologne where the Germans could assist. Late in the evening the R33 was able to hold her position over the Dutch coast, hovering there until 5 o'clock the next morning. She was then able to make her slow way back home, arriving at the Suffolk coast eight hours later and making Pulham at 13:50 hrs where she was put into the shed alongside the R36. For their actions, the crew were rewarded by the present of watches from King George V and the coxswain, Sergeant "Sky" Hunt, was awarded the Air Force Medal, which he insisted should be awarded to the crew as a whole.
In October after repairs, she was be used for experiments that would give useful data for the construction of the R101 airship. Once these were finished in mid October she was used for trials launching a fighter aircraft (see parasite fighter for the concept). The plane in question was a lightweight DH 53 Hummingbird. After some near misses, a successful launch and recapture was achieved in December that year. The following year she was launching a pair of Gloster Grebes weighing about a ton apiece. She was then sent to the sheds at Pulham Market where in 1928 she was finally broken when "severe" metal fatigue was found in her frame. The forward portion of R33's control car is on display at the RAF museum at Hendon.
Specification
- Length: 643 ft (196 m)
- Diameter: 79 ft (24 m)
- Speed: 62 mph (99 km/h)
- Engines: 5 x Sunbeam "Maori" 250 hp (190 kW) each
- Volume: 1,950,000 ft³ (55,200 m³)
See also
References
- Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik,Airship saga: The history of airships seen through the eyes of the men who designed, built, and flew them , 1982, ISBN 0713710012
- Manfred Griehl and Joachim Dressel, Zeppelin! The German Airship Story, 1990 ISBN 1-85409-045-3
- Ces Mowthorpe, Battlebags: British Airships of the First World War, 1995 ISBN 0905-778-138
- Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik, Jane's Pocket Book 7 - Airship Development, 1976 ISBN 0356-04656-7
External links
Airships | Airships of the United Kingdom | Airborne aircraft carriers
"R33"