His Majesty’s Airship R-100, visit to Canada in 1930
R-100 Airship
(Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 3349142)
British R-100 Airship visiting, St. Hubert, Quebéc, Sep 1930. His Majesty’s Airship R-100 flew on a 13-day visit to Quebec and Ontario following a record setting 3,364-mile (5,414-kilometre) non-stop flight from England. The 719-foot 9.5-inch (219-metre) long R-100 was the largest airship in the world in 1930 (along with its sister ship R-101), and was designed to carry 100 passengers and 37 crew on regularly scheduled mail and passenger flights to Canada, Egypt and India.
(Quebec Aerospace Museum Photo)
The R-100 over St. Hubert, Quebec. The R-100’s arrival inspired 800,000 people to travel to St. Hubert Airport to view the moored airship, which was three times longer than today’s Boeing 747 or Airbus A380. The trans-Atlantic voyage between 29 July and 16 August 1930, promoted the coming age of scheduled airship flights linking Canada and England.
In 1924, the British government sponsored the Imperial Airship Scheme to link the far corners of the Empire with scheduled airship service. The government committed to fund the construction of two airships, one built by private industry (R-100) and the other by the government-owned Royal Airship Works (R-101). Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King was briefed at the Imperial Conference in London in 1926 and made a commitment to build an airship base in Eastern Canada to support regular trans-Atlantic mail and passenger service. The next year, a British team came to Canada to help select a suitable site. At the time, the Canadian government believed that communities and aviation companies should build their own airports. The government tried to convince the City of Montreal to construct an airship base and airport, but the city was not interested.
A one-square-mile plot of flat land on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River with clear approaches was selected for the airship base in August 1927. The location was about six miles (10 km) from the centre of Montreal, four miles (6.4 km) from the Longueuil ferry wharf, and adjacent to the St. Hubert Station on the Canadian National Railway main line and the Chambly Highway. St. Hubert became the first civil airport built and owned by the Canadian government. The centrepiece of the $1 million development was a 208-ft (62-m) high illuminated, orange and black mooring mast that was a marvel of mechanical ingenuity. The iconic steel mooring tower was designed by the Department of Public Works in Ottawa and built by Canadian Vickers, which was also actively building aircraft at its shipyard on the Montreal waterfront.
The mast was equipped with an elevator and a circular stair case to the ground to move passengers and crew. It was also equipped with pipes running from the ground to the top of the tower to replenish an airship with fuel, water and hydrogen gas. The controls in the mast were designed so a mooring officer and an assistant could easily moor giant dirigibles with a set of mechanical controls and winches and the support of a large contingent of staff on the ground. The ground floor of the tower contained three large rooms filled with huge winches, brakes, transformers and motors. And set back from the airfield was a hydrogen gas plant.
(Quebec Aerospace Museum Photo)
Canada’s former-Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King looks on as the R-100 passes overhead.
The R-100 departed Cardington, Bedfordshire, for Canada under the command of captain Ralph Sleigh Booth on the evening of Tuesday, 29 July 1930, with 37 crew and six passengers, including deputy chief engineer Nevil Shute Norway (who using his pen name Nevil Shute became a famous novelist). The ocean crossing was uneventful, and the airship entered the Gulf of Saint Lawrence flying over the Strait of Belle Isle separating the island of Newfoundland and the Labrador Peninsula. On reaching Quebec City, almost every ship in the harbour blew its horn in a welcome greeting. At the time, it took at least five days to sail between Quebec City and Southampton.
The R-100 was forced to reduce its speed flying up the Saint Lawrence towards Montreal after some violent winds tore some of the fabric covering off the tail fins. The R-100 reached Montreal at night. Then at 4 a.m. on Friday, 1 August, the crew dropped a mooring line from the nose and two yaw lines from the rear of the R-100 as it floated 500 ft (150 m) above St. Hubert Airport. The mooring line was attached to a cable attached to the telescoping receiving arm at the summit of the mast, and the yaw lines passed through heavy pulleys attached to two of 24 cement anchors ringing the mast at a radius of 740 feet (225 m). Three winches then pulled the R-100 towards the mast until fasteners attached to the receiving arm and to the nose of the airship snapped together at 5:37 a.m., marking an end to the 78-hour and 49-minute flight — eight hours of which were attributed to the damage suffered over Quebec.
More than 200 journalists and photographers were on hand to report on the arrival of the R-100. Official commentary was provided in English and French only after pressure was applied by local French language newspapers and Quebec Members of Parliament. Local newspapers reported that the R-100 was 215 ft (65 m) longer than the White Star Line’s SS Laurentic, which was the largest ocean liner serving Montreal in 1930. Nearly 800,000 people journeyed to St. Hubert to view the R-100 during its 13 days in Canada, including 3,000 who were able to tour the mooring mast and the airship. A train station was specially established in downtown Montreal, and on Saturday, Aug. 2 alone nearly 150,000 people took the train to the airport. The Quebec government also recorded that 131,977 cars visited the airport during the R-100’s stay, carrying half a million people.
It’s estimated that another million Canadians viewed the R-100 on its 26-hour flight over Ontario on 10 and 11 August 1930, with 16 VIP passengers from the government, military and industry. The route took the R-100 over Ottawa, Kingston, Peterborough, Oshawa, Toronto, Niagara Falls, St Catharines, Hamilton, Burlington, Gananoque, Prescott and Cornwall. In Toronto, local newspaper photographers photographed the R-100 over the city from the roof of the Bank of Commerce building on King Street. Photos published during the 1930 visit showed female kitchen and dining room staff, but no women were flown onboard the R-100 during its visit to Canada. The R-100 departed St. Hubert mooring tower at 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, 13 August and arrived in Cardington, U.K. at 11:06 a.m. on Saturday, 16 August after a flight of 57 hours and 56 minutes. On the return flight to England there were 16 passengers including 10 Canadian and British journalists.
The crash of the R-100's sister ship R-101 in France on 7 Oct 1930, led to the the Imperial Airship Scheme being cancelled, and the magnificent R-100 was ordered scrapped. St. Hubert Airport became the centre of civil aviation in eastern Canada. It was the first airport lighted at night; the first with a radio range; the first with a control tower; and the first with snow removal. The airship mooring mast was dismantled in 1938 and St. Hubert became a military airport after Montreal’s Dorval Airport opened on 1 Sep 1941.
In 2007, Montreal aviation historians located many of the 24 concrete airship mooring blocks on the airport property as well as a tether ring, which is now part of a collection of the Montreal Aviation Museum. No. 438 Tactical Helicopter Squadron at St. Hubert has a 10-foot (three m) wooden propeller made in Montreal to replace a damaged R-100 propeller, but it was never used. The Quebec Aerospace Museum says the location of the iconic R-100 mooring mast (coordinates 45 31 13.59 N 073 25 20.46 W) placed it on the airfield about halfway between the 438 Squadron hangar and the L’École nationale d’aérotechnique (ÉNA) campus. (Kenneth I. Swartz)
