Cardington Sheds

This afternoon I had a trip out to Cardington in Bedfordshire to visit the new Airlander 10 aircraft (you or I would say airship, but they say aircraft).

Cardington was the home of the R100 and R101 airships of the late 1920's. The scale of those airships must have been mindblowing 'back in the day' . Bear in mind that the Airlander is big, it is way bigger than a Jumbo Jet and the Airlander only fills 1/4 of the volume of one of the hangars, whereas the R101 filled, front to back, top to bottom these buildings. The buildings are that large that they can have their own clouds, and weather, inside them!

The Airlander is an interesting concept. A British idea that was sold to the US Army, but then the project was cancelled, and the company bought it back off the US Government. Its nice to see a real airship (sorry!) being built, and for historic reasons at Cardington, but I do tend to feel it is a very limited market.

Nonetheless, some innovative British engineering on the go is always a good thing to see.