British Airships 1905-30 (New Vanguard) [Paperback]

Scholars of aviation history know that after the First World War Britain's dabbling into the field of lighter than air transportation ended when the R101 crashed explosively on its maiden voyage. However it is far less well known that the R101 was the last of a long line of British airships. When one thinks of `lighter than air' craft in the First World War one thinks of the great German Zeppelins, but in fact during the war the British had a larger and far more efficient fleet of airships.

In his book British Airships 1905-30 Ian Castle explores in detail this little known element of the British war effort in the Great War. While the Germans spent vast resources on building massive ridged airships with a goal of aerial bombardment The British build many smaller craft, usually blimps with a crew of 2-4 men that they used to patrol for U-boats.

Castle knows his stuff and has been able to follow the labyrinthine course of development in His Majesties Airships as different models were developed by different companies, the trouble is he follows the labyrinth too closely. The opening pages follow the prewar interest in the airships and the closing pages which follow their war record are fascinating reading but the intervening pages, where he details the many different models of airships, is a convoluted mess of numbers and models without context.

Castle wants to show you every model that rolled out of the shed regardless of its use. So for example the SSP and SSZ are given nearly the same amount of space in the text even though there were only 6 SSP's built because the SSZ was so superior it cancelled out the SSP. Also the text has each model as a stand alone item. There is little explanation of the world in which each model existed and why changes were made. For example on page 31 he writes "In the wake of the shocking R38 disaster..." but does not tell us what this was until several pages later when he has talked about several other models and then reaches the Model R38.

The effect is that the reader is left floundering around and finds himself caring less and less about each successive model. Castle cares about the ships and wants to share his knowledge with the reader on this fascinating topic but the delivery is awkward.

There are ways to write this sort of `number crunching' book which Osprey produces but this is not it. There is no explanation as to why other models were made, beyond the bigger/faster mind set, but no explanation for how the existing models were in need of improvement.

Castle would have done far more to interest his readers by going into more detail about fewer models, how they were used and led to other developments in the war. As it stands Castle has served to whet the reader's appetite for information on this fascinating but little known topic, and then served up a poor meal to follow.

This is an excellent introduction to British airships. That means the book covers a fairly wide range but does not go into a lot of behind-the-scenes detail. I believe another reviewer mentioned that he would like to know why changes were made to airship designs, but I really think that is beyond an introductory book like this. My advice would be to read this book first, then look for books on specific airship models of your choice.

Unfortunately, the German zeppelins tend to get all the attention, what with the Hindenberg going up in flames and all that. That fateful disaster has skewed the study of airships and there's a tendency to think that all airships were German. Not so, although they certainly were pioneers in that area of aviation. Ian Castle's book includes British nonrigid, semi-rigid, and rigid airships. The Brits did learn from the zeppelins, as Castle noted, by examining the wreckage of downed zeppelins and doing some reverse engineering. But that is not how they developed their aircraft fleet -- it was how they refined it.

British airships took several forms, and Castle includes a nice amount of information about each type. The illustrations accompanying the text are very useful, including full-color plates showing the different airships in relation to one another so you can get an idea of their relative sizes. The British had their share of airship disasters and setbacks, but I think Castle puts these into proper perspective and doesn't dwell needlessly on the downside of airship history. All inventions are fraught with problems.

In addition to the attractive paintings, there are numerous photographs, a cut-away view of the R.34, and a data table that includes size, lift, length, top speed, and the engine type(s) used. A short bibliography and a link to the Airship Heritage Trust, plus an index, round out the volume. There is plenty here for those who are just curious, and for the history student there is enough information to give you keywords -- names and places -- for further research on the subject. There are some editorial issues that could have been cleaned up (as mentioned in other reviews), but overall they weren't major issues for me.

Of special interest to me was the R.34, an airship that flew from Scotland the New York and back again in 1919, making the first trans-Atlantic round trip. Castle gives the names of airships according to their designations, which tend to be alphanumerical monikers such as HMA 17 or R.38. I wish that any regular names (for ships that had them) had also been included.

I've just found Flight of the Titan: The Story of the R34 here at Amazon, but I never even would have known to look for it if I had not read Castle's book first.