His Majesty’s Airship

The rise and fall of the world's 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 Majesty's 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.