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Airships ..
Barrage Balloons ..
Cardington - airships, barrage balloons ..
RAF Cardington
The UK had a rigid airship program during WW1. This required the big construction sheds in Barrow-in-Furness, Inchinnan, Barlow and Cardington, and the rigid airship war stations at Longside, East Fortune, Howden, Pulham (Norfolk) and Kingsnorth.
Dimensions of Cardington shed:
Length: 812 ft (247m)
Width: 275 ft (84m) total, clear width is 180 ft (54.9m)
Height: 180 ft (55m) total, clear height is 157 ft (47.9m)
Works, in Cardington, Bedfordshire remain, where the R101 was built. The No.1 Cardington hangar is original, but extended; the No.2 hangar was relocated to Cardington from Pulham in 1928.
In 1924, the Imperial Airship Communications scheme planned to extend mail and passenger service to British India, so an 859-foot hangar was constructed at Karachi (now in Pakistan) in 1929. This was the intended destination of the R101. --
Hx RAF Cardington: The facility was built by aircraft manufacturing company Shorts Brothers to build airships for the Admiralty. Shed 1 (700ft / 210m long) was built in 1915 to enable it to build two rigid airships, the R-31 and R-32. A housing estate was also constructed opposite the site, and named Shortstown.
The airships site was nationalised in April 1919, becoming known as the Royal Airship Works.
In preparation for the R101 project the No 1 shed was extended between October 1924 and March 1926; its roof was raised by 35 feet and its length increased to 812 feet. The No. 2 shed (Southern shed), which had originally been located at RNAS Pulham, Norfolk, was dismantled in 1928 and re-erected at Cardington.
RAF Cardington
The UK had a rigid airship program during WW1. This required the big construction sheds in Barrow-in-Furness, Inchinnan, Barlow and Cardington, and the rigid airship war stations at Longside, East Fortune, Howden, Pulham (Norfolk) and Kingsnorth.
Dimensions of Cardington shed:
Length: 812 ft (247m)
Width: 275 ft (84m) total, clear width is 180 ft (54.9m)
Height: 180 ft (55m) total, clear height is 157 ft (47.9m)
Works, in Cardington, Bedfordshire remain, where the R101 was built. The No.1 Cardington hangar is original, but extended; the No.2 hangar was relocated to Cardington from Pulham in 1928.
In 1924, the Imperial Airship Communications scheme planned to extend mail and passenger service to British India, so an 859-foot hangar was constructed at Karachi (now in Pakistan) in 1929. This was the intended destination of the R101. --
Hx RAF Cardington: The facility was built by aircraft manufacturing company Shorts Brothers to build airships for the Admiralty. Shed 1 (700ft / 210m long) was built in 1915 to enable it to build two rigid airships, the R-31 and R-32. A housing estate was also constructed opposite the site, and named Shortstown.
The airships site was nationalised in April 1919, becoming known as the Royal Airship Works.
In preparation for the R101 project the No 1 shed was extended between October 1924 and March 1926; its roof was raised by 35 feet and its length increased to 812 feet. The No. 2 shed (Southern shed), which had originally been located at RNAS Pulham, Norfolk, was dismantled in 1928 and re-erected at Cardington.
After the crash of the R101, in October 1930, all work stopped in Britain on airships. Cardington then became a storage station.
In 1936/1937 Cardington started building barrage balloons; and it became the No 1 RAF Balloon Training Unit responsible for the storage and training of balloon operators and drivers. In 1943 until 1967 it was home to the RAF Meteorological research balloons-training unit, undertaking development and storage (after 1967 this was undertaken by the Royal Aircraft Establishment).
For both airships and barrage balloons, Cardington manufactured its own hydrogen, in the Gas Factory, using the steam reforming process. In 1948 the Gas Factory became 279 MU (Maintenance Unit), RAF Cardington; and then, in 1955, 217 MU. 217 MU, RAF Cardington, produced all the gases used by the Royal Air Force until its closure in April 2000; including gas cylinder filling and maintenance.
The two airship sheds ceased being part of the RAF Cardington site in the late 1940s and they were put to other uses. The fence was moved, so they were outside the main RAF Cardington site. --
In 1921, Cardington became the Royal Airship Works and R38 had its first flight here. Interest in airships was renewed in 1924 and two new ones were commissioned — R100 by Barnes Wallis (built at Howden) and R101 built at Cardington.
Shed No.1 had to be enlarged to construct R101, which was 223m long and a little over 40m in diameter. The work was done in 1926-7. The shed was lengthened, the base A-frames widened and the roof was raised.
In 1928, an airship hanger at Pulham in Norfolk was dismantled and moved to Cardington and re-erected as Shed No.2 to house R100.
R101 was launched on 12th October 1929. It was to have a sad end, as it crashed in France in October 1930, killing most of those on board. R100 was broken up a year later. This brought airship development in Britain to an end until the 1970s, when when smaller more manoeuvrable craft were developed at Cardington.
The demise of the R101 in 1930 killed off the government's plans for the Empire Communications Scheme. They had envisaged airship coverage of outlying locations in the British Empire for mail and passenger services. The proposed destinations were to include the UK, Canada, Egypt and India. Facilities were built in these countries in readiness for a service that never really got off the ground. Cardington had been the designated UK operations base.
The sheds are constructed of steel portal frames with pin joints at the crown and in the side walls. The doors were originally capstan operated but now there are powered doors on transverse tracks. Shed No.2 is in the better condition, having had repairs done to it in the 1970s and in 1986.
For many years the sheds housed part of the RAF Museum. More recently, Shed No.2 was used by the Building Research Establishment for tests, including the full-scale load & fire testing of multi-storey buildings.
http://www.engineering-timelines.com/scripts/engineeringItem.asp?id=514 .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardington_Airfield .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship_hangar .
http://cardington.weebly.com/ .
http://dunkirk1940.org/index.php?&p=1_315
http://www.17balloons.co.uk/pages/Appendix-d.html
https://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=48404
WWI
http://mashable.com/2016/03/02/wwi-balloons/#Y4giyGlqn8qS
Balloon Barrage At Cardington (1938)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcwV5Lmd-ec
WAAFs And Barrage Balloon (1941)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP52ZpPuoEw
Barrage Balloons - Ben Silver
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYZbCEPmWCtPSAbcIUWfD4s_Wqg-i65N9 .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcwV5Lmd-ec
WAAFs And Barrage Balloon (1941)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP52ZpPuoEw
Barrage Balloons - Ben Silver
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYZbCEPmWCtPSAbcIUWfD4s_Wqg-i65N9 .
Waterborne balloons on rafts had been successful in Italy prior to World War One when the Austrians and the Italians were at war. The concept was expanded to various powered boats (unlike the rafts / pontoons of WWI days).
The military classed these as auxiliary fighting vessels and were made up of two distinct groups:
1. Sea-going vessels that accompanied convoys usually comprising of small mercantile vessels and tugs
2. In harbours and estuaries drifters, barges, and trawlers were used. The vessels sailed to a suitable location, anchored, and then raised the balloon to deter enemy aircraft from attacking vulnerable locations, such as docks. Trawlers and Drifters were often commandeered by the military to be adapted to fly barrage balloons.
All of them needed a flat deck area big enough to bed a balloon down and a winch that could be operated with relative ease for hauling down and letting up the balloon.
The vessels were manned by a naval crew who dealt with all the nautical aspects, and a small group of RAF men who dealt with the flying and maintenance of the balloon. Some aspects were overlapping and it seems the crews worked very well together as a team. Food was brought out to them by small boats and if the weather was very rough then they might not get fed for many hours.
German aircraft dropped sea-mines into the ocean in an attempt to sink shipping. In order for the mines to be most effective it was necessary for the German aircraft to fly very low. Using balloons as a defence was very effective as German aircraft found the targets they wanted to drop the mines in were well protected by balloons and they could not fly low enough to hit the target that they wanted to.
So estuaries and river mouths were often prime locations for the balloon vessels.
http://www.bbrclub.org/Barrage%20Balloon%20Vessels.htm
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