📌 WWI Airship No.1 & No.2 Sheds, RAF Cardington Airfield [TL-0807 4683]

            Cardington Airfield, previously RAF Cardington, is a former Royal Air Force station in Bedfordshire, England, with a long and varied history, particularly in relation to airships and balloons. The site started life as a private venture when aircraft manufacturing company Short Brothers bought land there to build Airships for the Admiralty. It constructed a 700ft long Airship Hangar (No.1 Shed) in 1915 to enable it to build two Rigid Airships, the R-31 and the R-32. Short also built a housing estate, opposite the site, which it named Shortstown.
 The Airships Station was nationalised in April 1919, it becoming known as the Royal Airship Works. In preparation for the R101 project the No.1 shed was extended between October 1924 and March 1926, its roof was raised by 35ft and its length increased to 812ft. The No.2 Shed, which had originally been located at RNAS Pulham St Mary inShortstownit was dismantled in 1928, transported and re-erected at Cardington.
 After the crash of the R101, in October 1930, all work stopped in Britain on Airships. Cardington then became a storage station. In 1936 to 1937 Cardington started building barrage balloons and it became the No.1 RAF Balloon Training Unit responsible for the storage and training of balloon operators and drivers. In 1943 until 1967 it was home to the RAF Meteorological research balloons-training unit, undertaking development and storage (after 1967 this was undertaken by the Royal Aircraft Establishment).
The two Airship Sheds ceased being part of the RAF Cardington site in the late 1940's and they were put to other uses, the fence was moved, putting them outside the main RAF Cardington site. In the 1950's, during the time of National Service, RAF Cardington was the reception unit, where thousands of recruits went to be issued with their kit. The Parachute Regiment was stationed there as one of the Sheds housed the balloons from which trainees made their first drops. In 1954 RAF Maintenance Command used No.1 Shed for its rehearsals for the Royal Tournament and The Royal Engineers also used No.1 Shed for its rehearsals for the 1987 Royal Tournament.
 No.1 Shed 1 was used by the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) to operate balloons on behalf of the Met Office carrying instruments to measure conditions in the atmosphere. The balloons were also used in parachute development (although they were unmanned, using a heavy dead weight) much of this work was carried out in secret. For both airships and barrage balloons, Cardington manufactured its own hydrogen, in the Gas Factory, using the steam reforming process. In 1948 the Gas Factory became 279 Maintenance Unit (MU) RAF Cardington and then, in 1955 217 Maintenance Unit. 217 MU, RAF Cardington, produced all the gases used by the Royal Air Force until its closure in April 2000, including gas cylinder filling and maintenance.
 In 1971 No.2 Shed became the Fire Research Station (part of the Home Office) which conducted gas explosion experiments and for investigating fires. Full scale testing and fire research was undertaken from 1989 and In 1990 the facility was transferred to Building Research Establishment as a whole building test facility for the Cardington tests. Here, multi-storey steel, concrete and wooden buildings were constructed and then destructively tested within the huge space available. No.2 Shed was repainted and maintained in comparison with No.1 Shed 1. The buildings tests were mentioned during the course of the BBC series 'The Conspiracy Files' as evidence in the controversy surrounding the collapse of World Trade Center Building on the 11th September 2001.
 The Met Office association with the site continues by maintaining a Meteorological Research Unit (MRU) which is responsible for conducting research into part of the atmosphere called the boundary layer by using a tethered balloon which is kept in a small portable hangar. By the support of Lord Brabazon, fliers of extreme lightweight high-performance indoor flying models obtained access over a period of over 40 years. There were four world championships held in the 1970's and 1980's for teams from across Europe and the United States. Record flights were made of over 45 minutes under the highest available ceiling in the UK.
 A company called 'Airship Industries' tried to revive the fortunes of the airship industry in No.1 Shed (on closure of the RAE operation) in the 1980's, but the efforts ended in failure. As of 2016, the site was being used for the development of a Hybrid Airship, called the 'Airlander 10' by the company Hybrid Air Vehicles.
   

Taken in: UK / England / Eastcotts (show map)

Taken on: March 25, 2015

Tags:

WWI

World War One

World War Two

Airship Station

Airship Hangar

Hangar

Airship Shed

Airship No.1 Shed

No.1 Shed

Airship No.2 Shed

No.2 Shed

Shed

RAF Cardington

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Bedfordshire « less

Sets appears in: • RAF Cardington, Bedfordshire.

Groups appears in: • WW II • old military buildings more » • Great Air War Aircraft WWI • ww2 Airfields • World War 2 and Cold War Buildings • Abandoned airfields • Traces of War • Forgotten Airfields Of WW2 • WWII Archaeology « less

Camera: Fujifilm FinePix S4000, f/9.0, 1/210 sec, 5mm, ISO 64 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Fujifilm FinePix S4000
Aperture:	f/9.0
Exposure Time:	0.005 sec (1/210)
Focal Length:	5mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Digital Camera FinePix S4000 Ver1.01
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