Fatal Flight audiobook: Opening credits (1/14)

Download this audiobook, view the figures in the print version, or read the appendices at www.engineerguy.com/airship. Fatal Flight: The True Story of Britain's Last Great Airship is written by Bill Hammack and read by the author.
Fatal Flight brings vividly to life the year of operation of R.101, the last great British airship-a luxury liner three and a half times the length of a 747 jet, with a spacious lounge, a dining room that seated fifty, glass-walled promenade decks, and a smoking room. The British expected R.101 to spearhead a fleet of imperial airships that would dominate the skies as British naval ships, a century earlier, had ruled the seas. The dream ended when, on its demonstration flight to India, R.101 crashed in France, tragically killing nearly all aboard.
Combining meticulous research with superb storytelling, Fatal Flight guides us from the moment the great airship emerged from its giant shed-nearly the largest building in the British Empire-to soar on its first flight, to its last fateful voyage. The full story behind R.101 shows that, although it was a failure, it was nevertheless a supremely imaginative human creation. The technical achievement of creating R.101 reveals the beauty, majesty, and, of course, the sorrow of the human experience.
The narrative follows First Officer Noel Atherstone and his crew from the ship’s first test flight in 1929 to its fiery crash on October 5, 1930. It reveals in graphic detail the heroic actions of Atherstone as he battled tremendous obstacles. He fought political pressures to hurry the ship into the air, fended off Britain’s most feted airship pilot, who used his influence to take command of the ship and nearly crashed it, and, a scant two months before departing for India, guided the rebuilding of the ship to correct its faulty design. After this tragic accident, Britain abandoned airships.
Set against the backdrop of the British Empire at the height of its power in the early twentieth century, Fatal Flight portrays an extraordinary age in technology, fueled by humankind’s obsession with flight.
This audio recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike Non-Commercial License.
Book Metadata
Publisher Articulate Noise Books | [e-mail]
Hardcover | ISBN 978-1-945441-01-1
eBook | ISBN 978-1-945441-02-8
Paper | ISBN 978-1-945441-03-5
Audiobook | ISBN 978-1-945441-04-2
Audience 01 - General Trade
Subjects
HIS015070 HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century
TEC002000 TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Aeronautics & Astronautics
TEC056000 TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / History
SCI034000 SCIENCE / History

[@douglashenri5017]

Bill Hammack's work is truly inspirational.

[@julianpetek2829]

thanks for making it aviable for everyone

[@sixstringedthing]

"Paper Skies" channel sent me here, very much looking forward to listening to this on my next long drive.

[@MrShoryuken1]

What a brilliant audiobook, thank you for all your work.

[@retrofighter801]

He's back!

[@crystaldragon141]

my thoughts exactly!

[@jimjawz]

Bravo . Thanks Bill

[@titanic-theorys]

Your voice is perfect for any audiobook

[@lolioliol360]

Hell yeah, gonna be great. Thank you!

[@ve2vfd]

Thanks for another awesome video! Bought the audiobook on Itunes, can't wait to listen to it on an upcoming flight...

[@mcorrade]

Bill thank gawd your back. We missed you my friend!!!

[@seansher]

Really interesting and well narrated, very enjoyable. Thank you for putting this up!

[@engineerguyvideo]

+seansher you are welcome

[@Fluffy8unny]

Thanks so much for this

[@doncorleon9]

Worth the wait IMHO!

[@TheElnots]

Thank you very much!

[@TopG20073]

Can you please make more of these? love these kind of stuff.

[@nerd_world8919]

I love your voice dude

[@AndyChipling]

So clear, as a teacher myself, I almost cry with joy and have tears in my eyes. it's that good.

[@steveanderson958]

Wonderful work by somebody who cares about transmitting the wonders of industrial history to us folks who didn't get so much formal education.

[@RohanBeckett]

Just finished listening to the audiobook! Great work! a really interesting listen! Being a local to Melbourne, you had a few mispronunciations (Gippsland), but it didn't detract at all from a very well-read, and fascinating subject! Looking forward to future audiobooks from you!

[@engineerguyvideo]

+Rohan Beckett I looked that up ... and hoped I got it right -- likely dandenong was wrong also! Thx for being forgiving.

[@RohanBeckett]

Gippsland is with a hard G, like in give... Dandenong was fine... but most overseas people have a habit of saying Melbourne how it is written, when locally we say 'Mell-Bun' .. it really was interesting to hear that someone, who lived just near me, played a big hand in the British Airshop program!

[@damianerangey]

Thank you Bill

[@engineerguyvideo]

Np

[@derekakien7379]

Reviting. Great explanation.

[@operator8014]

Please pass along my complements to the author! XD

[@wittymacaroon9084]

Hallo

[@bg2k625]

It's, umm...let's say...'fascinating' that given all weigh restrictions that led them to use hydrogen as the lifting gas and to add an extra sectio to increase lift, they still insisted on all the upper class luxuries. I mean, a smoking room-with a metal floor-on a hydrogen airship. Seriously?

[@sixstringedthing]

The luxury was an essential part of the design of these airships intended as ocean liners of the skies, in the same way that steamship lines were constantly competing to launch the grandest and most luxurious vessels to capture the imaginations of the wealthy public. Bare, noisy, fume-filled and cramped quarters were okay for military airships and crew, but certainly not for the kind of well-to-do patrons who were the target market for this new form of travel. The hydrogen-filled design (and addition of the extra gas bag) was basically a workaround enabling adequate lift to haul all that luxury into the sky, it simply couldn't be done with helium. The luxuries themselves were non-negotioble design constraints, if they were left out there would have been no point building the airships at all.