His Majesty's Airship: The Life and Tragic Death of the World's Largest Flying Machine

(Hardback)

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Description

The rise and fall of the worlds largest airship. The R101 was the ship of empire, meant to dazzle the world with her technological advancement and immense size. Faster than a plane, more luxurious than an ocean liner, the R101 would connect the furthest reaches of the British Empire. It was, however, not to be. The spectacular crash of the British airship R101 in 1930 changed the world of aviation forever. While most people have heard of the fiery crash of the Hindenburg, a German ship that went down in New Jersey seven years later, the story of R101 whose downfall killed many more people has been largely forgotten. At the time, however, the outpouring of national grief in Britain was equalled only by what happened after the sinking of the Titanic. In His Majestys Airship, S. C. Gwynne recounts the epic narrative of the ill fated airship and her eccentric champion, Christopher Thomson. With characteristic verve, Gwynne paints a luminous portrait of interwar Britain and reanimates the intrepid world of early aviation.

Reviews

'Captivating...Gwynne spins a rich tale of technology, daring and folly that transcends its putative subject.Like any good popular history, its also a portrait of an age.'

-- New York Times

'Utterly thrilling, the greatest tale of aerial hubris since Icarus. Reads more like a page-turning thriller than a well-researched history but is equally satisfying on both counts.'

-- Daily Express

'A Promethean tale of unlimited ambitions and technical limitations, airy dreams and explosive endings.'

-- Wall Street Journal

'Meticulously researched and vibrantly written... an immersive and enlightening account of how hubris and impatience can lead to disaster.'

-- Publishers Weekly

'An enthralling study of the airship era that has the reader hooked from page 1. Courage, hubris, ingenuity and a shocking disregard for safety are all bound up with fading empire and one mans dreams.'

-- Julia Boyd, author of A Village in the Third Reich

'Ive just closed this book and this is the feelingIm standing inside the massive airship, a whale in the air, on its aluminum 'ribs,' looking far up into the belly as ten-story tall gas bags shift and pulse like creatures in a fable... Gwynnes lovely prose hunts and nudges across the page, as the airship hunts the air, revealing a grand story, its hubris, its heartbreak.'

-- Doug Stanton, author of Horse Soldiers

'Aviation history is nothing less than miraculous; it took a mere sixty-three years, after all, to get from the Wright brothers to Neil Armstrong... WithHis Majestys Airship, the inimitable Mr. Gwynne explores in vivid detail how this dream bloomed, and how it, in time, fell tragically to earth... remarkable.'

-- Craig Nelson, author of Pearl Harbor and Rocket Men

'S.C. Gwynne is a consummate storyteller, and his well-documented account of the 1930 crash of a spectacularly large hydrogen-filled British airship is not to be missed.'

-- BookPage

'Gwynne meticulously recounts the final flight of the British airship R101 and the entire zeppelin era in this engaging history. There is plenty of international zeppelin history here, but it is the personal conflicts in the R101 control room, exacerbated by Scotts spiraling problem with alcoholism, the social context, and the near minute-by-minute presentation of the tragic flight that will capture reader attention.'

-- Booklist

Author Bio

S.C. Sam Gwynne is the best-selling author of Empire of the Summer Moon and Rebel Yell. Originally an award-winning investigative journalist, he has written extensively for the New York Times, Washington Post, Time Magazine, Boston Globe and many more.