• Current opened records

  • Airship Guarantee Co Ltd

Aircraft manufacturers
Location:
  • Howden, Yorkshire
Operating dates:
  • 1923 - 1935
History:
  • Airship Guarantee Co Ltd was incorporated in 1923 as a subsidiary of Vickers Ltd, as a result of a proposal by Commander Dennis Burney to the Vickers board to provide airships for a passenger service to India and Australia under a government-supported scheme. However, in 1924 the new Labour government announced its own Imperial Airship Scheme, a programme to develop two airships that would provide passenger and mail services between Britain and India and Canada. One of the airships, the R100, was ordered from the Airship Guarantee Co Ltd. The managing director of the company was Burney himself, and the design team was led by Barnes Wallis. Nevil Shute Norway, served as the firm's stress engineer and was later promoted to deputy chief engineer and, when Wallis left the project, to chief engineer. The R100 was to be based on existing technology and the second airship, the R101, was to test innovative airship technology and be built by the government's Royal Airship Works at Cardington. Theoretical work on the R100 began in 1924, but the team did not move to Howden, Yorkshire, where the airship was built, until 1926. Construction was delayed by lack of resources as development proved challenging and the R100 had been commissioned under a fixed-price contract. The R100 finally made its maiden flight in 1929 and flew successfully to Canada in 1930. However, it was soon realised that neither of the commissioned airships would be able to carry the payload required. In 1931, in the aftermath of the crash of the R101 airship, the government decided to abandon airship development and the R100 was broken up. In 1935 Airship Guarantee Co Ltd went into liquidation.
Principal and significant aircraft manufactured:
  • R100 (1929).
Publications:
  • N Shute, Slide rule (1954); J D Scott, Vickers. A history (1962), pp.169-174.
Records 1:
Records 2:

  • National Aerospace Library

    General arrangement plan for R100 1928; power distribution diagram for R100 1928; brochures and marketing materials 1928.

Records 3:

  • Science Museum at Wroughton

    Build agreement with Air Council 1924; technical drawings, airships 1919-29; airship reports 1922-24; technical papers 1925-29; mast description 1926; patent specifications 1925-27; correspondence 1924-29; organisational chart 1927; airship photographs 1913-29 [BNW - Barnes Neville Wallis papers]; papers re engine systems for the R100 1926 [NW/BB5/4].

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