- 1 day ago
Category
😹
FunTranscript
00:00And away we go!
00:04We're moving!
00:08They were the machines that made Britain great,
00:12fast, revolutionary, and sometimes downright dangerous.
00:16These are the stories of our engineering masterpieces
00:20that shook the world and drive the way we live today.
00:30I'm in an engine roaring decade of boom and bust.
00:42An age of empire that, when it started, saw petrol often sold in tins from the chemist.
00:49Yet by the time it ended, had fleets of tankers supplying thousands of garage forecourts.
00:56It was a time of great contrasts,
00:58when Britain's boffins created the largest flying machine the world had ever seen.
01:03Yet relied on tiny pathfinding biplanes to map out the air routes we still use today.
01:12And it was a time of great speed,
01:15when Britain's racing machines utterly dominated international motorsport.
01:19And her bikes could even take on aircraft with a chance of winning.
01:24Welcome to the high-octane decade that forged the petrol-centred world we live in today,
01:30but itself ended in the most massive economic collapse the world has ever known.
01:42Welcome to the 1920s.
01:45I'm at the epicentre of 1920s British motorsport.
02:03The site of the first British Grand Prix, numerous world speed records, and so many fatal accidents,
02:21it was said the medical facilities of this place consisted of a shovel.
02:32This is the wonderful, insanely fast banked circuit of Brooklands.
02:37A specially built two and three-quarter mile cauldron of speed,
02:42to which people poured throughout the 1920s to watch the drivers dicing with death,
02:48up on the banking that loomed over everything.
02:52Whether you lived or died here depended on how you drove those towering walls.
02:58Turn a fraction too late, and you'll fly over the top of the banking.
03:06But get it right, and the banking will slingshot you at great speed,
03:11down towards the main straight.
03:13But these banks didn't just form a gladiatorial racing circuit.
03:23They'd also been specially built as a vehicle testing arena,
03:27where for 10 shillings an hour, manufacturers could come and develop their machines.
03:34Making this place the hub of 1920s British road car design.
03:38But also meaning the British road cars developed here were very much at home on the racing track.
03:45None more so than those created by the man whose fabulous car I'm driving today.
03:52His name was W.O. Bentley.
03:57A train and plane engineer whose move into vehicle manufacture
04:01had resulted in massive high-tech touring cars
04:04that the French had the cheek to dub
04:07les camions le plus vite, or the world's fastest lorries.
04:13But what lorries?
04:14Just look at this engine.
04:16For its time it was absolutely cutting edge,
04:19reflecting Bentley's experience in designing engines for fighters.
04:25In there are revolutionary aluminium pistons,
04:28unlike most other cars of the day.
04:31But just like the aluminium pistons Bentley had designed and fitted
04:35to Britain's World War One fighter planes,
04:38transforming their performance and copied by aircraft the world over.
04:45But it's not built like a plane engine.
04:47It's built like a train engine.
04:50Meaning it went like stink and lasted forever.
04:54Like the rest of his machine.
04:56What you got of it?
04:58A massive, girded frame to hold the engine and wheels.
05:02A steering wheel.
05:04And a wooden box to sit on.
05:07And that was it.
05:08Bentley didn't do seats.
05:12Or bodywork.
05:15You bought your car raw
05:17and had the comfy bodywork fitted elsewhere.
05:19The French might have sneered at them,
05:21but Bentley had the last laugh.
05:26In 1923, France announced a gruelling 24-hour race.
05:31An extreme test of speed and endurance
05:34that has become an international motor racing classic
05:38still run to the present day.
05:40And whose winners are lauded as the greats of world motorsport.
05:43Le Mans.
05:48Very first to enter was an ordinary British Bentley.
05:52Driven by Bentley salesman John Duff.
05:55With WO's own test driver, Frank Clements, on board as mechanic.
06:04Unbelievably, I'm driving the priceless original 3-litre Bentley prototype
06:09that spawned their Le Mans car.
06:12And what a fantastic privilege it is for me
06:16to drive the oldest Bentley in existence.
06:21Absolutely magnificent.
06:23And just as Duff and Clements found,
06:26driving this car on a flat circuit like Le Mans,
06:29rather than on Brooklyn's banks where it was developed,
06:32created its own problems.
06:33Believe me, driving an early Bentley at speed on a flat circuit
06:41was, like everything else about the man and his cars,
06:44a game of utter contrasts.
06:48On the straights, that massive high-tech engine
06:51made the car so fast it was practically unbeatable,
06:55blasting it along at a staggering 98 miles an hour.
06:59But once it got to a flat bend,
07:02it was a completely different story.
07:05Unlike the banked bends of Brooklyns,
07:07which guided the cars round at massive speed with little braking,
07:11with flat bends you have to slow down a lot to get round them.
07:15And the Bentleys were utterly useless at that,
07:25as they'd been developed for Brooklyns with scarcely any brakes at all.
07:30All of which meant, when Duff and Clements raced away from the start line in France,
07:35they were in for an interesting time.
07:40Sure enough, the Bentley was faster than any of the other cars,
07:43sprang into the lead and clocked the fastest lap of the entire race.
07:48But as what brakes it had began to wear out,
07:52the Bentleys struggled to make it round the bends,
07:55and it was overtaken by a slower car.
07:58As night fell, Duff and Clements raced on, now running second.
08:02They couldn't pit for more brakes, but like all the other runners,
08:05they had to stop every couple of hours to take on fuel.
08:07And for refuelling, just like today's Formula 1 teams, they had an ultra-high-tech fuel rig.
08:16And this is it.
08:18What looks like an old milk churn full of petrol, and the biggest funnel you've ever seen.
08:22As the sun came up, they were still running second, when disaster struck.
08:35A stone punctured their fuel tank, and they ran out of petrol miles from the pits.
08:39There was nothing for it. Duff ran the three miles back to the pits, where Clements was waiting.
08:47Clements borrowed a bicycle, lashed a churn of fuel onto it, and pedalled back to repair the car.
08:55With cork and a lump of soap.
08:57In the end, they came in fourth. It wasn't a victory, but W.O. Bentley was completely hooked,
09:07and described it as the best race he'd ever seen.
09:13He and his drivers, the so-called Bentley boys, would be back throughout the twenties,
09:19this time with decent brakes.
09:22In 1924, they won by 10 miles.
09:26The Bentleys' unique mix of speed and strength made it unbeatable over 24 hours.
09:32Now, it could stop.
09:34They won again in 1927, 1928, and most spectacularly, in 1929,
09:41when they were first, second, third and fourth.
09:45Making Le Camillon Le Blue Vite.
09:48Not just one of the greatest racing machines of the decade,
09:52but one of the greatest racing machines ever.
09:57I love it. Absolutely love it.
10:01Today, having been in a privileged drive two of the great vintage Bentleys.
10:08Oh, that's a timely moment, isn't it?
10:09We probably could give it a bit of a pump there.
10:14What do we? No, we don't.
10:16That is a timely moment, doesn't it, really?
10:19It's still the greatest car of all time, believe me.
10:23But when you're 89 years old, you're entitled to conk out every now and then, I would have said.
10:30And that was probably my bad driving, actually, that did that.
10:36Not the car.
10:41Motor racing in the dashing Bentleys epitomised the 20s.
10:45A decade described by some as a ten-year party celebrating the end of World War One.
10:51Queens of the party were the flappers.
10:55Young women who were cutting their hair short and their dresses shorter
10:59to embrace Britain's new craze for dance and jazz halls.
11:03The ex-soldiers were partying too,
11:06buying up as many new-fangled boys' toys, gadgets and gizmos as they could get their hands on.
11:12And while the cities partied at their centres, they spread out at their edges,
11:17building comfortable new suburbs for the returning troops.
11:22So-called homes fit for heroes that came complete with lawns.
11:28Lawns had become a national obsession following Britain's invention of the mower 90 years previously.
11:36So when ATCO came up with their own must-have gadget in 1921,
11:40the first affordable, motorised machine for cutting your grass,
11:45gadget-loving Britain went mad for it.
11:48The ATCO standard.
11:50And, you know, I think men love mowers, particularly British men,
11:54because, of course, that's where it all started.
11:56You can get up in the morning and see a really messy garden out there,
12:00and then you can get in the shed, get out your ATCO, fire it up,
12:03and then within an hour, depending on the size of your lawn,
12:06you've got a nice, beautiful striped lawn, instant results.
12:08That's what it's all about, instant results.
12:11Because, of course, the ladies love a straight.
12:20But what made the ATCO a great British mower,
12:24probably the greatest mower of all time,
12:26was that not only was it well-made, it was also cleverly made.
12:29The engine, roller and blades were simply sandwiched between two steel plates
12:37and held together with just a few bolts,
12:40meaning it could be knocked out for as little as £20,
12:44a month's average wages, rather than the year's wages
12:48its massively complicated predecessor's cost.
12:53It sold by the millions, set the shape of mowers to come
12:56and made Britain a world leader.
12:59It even came delivered by specially adapted sidecar,
13:03which was nice.
13:09In fact, most things in the 20s were delivered by sidecar.
13:13There were even sidecars specially adapted for delivering motorbikes.
13:17However, if you were buying something really big,
13:20like a locomotive, it'd be delivered by Britain's first articulated lorries.
13:26Made by Britain's mould-breaking truck manufacturers, Scammell.
13:31Set up in 1920, Scammell's lorries led the world, literally the world,
13:45as their machines weren't designed just to run on the smooth civilised roads of the mother country.
13:51In the form of this giant six-wheeled Pioneer model,
14:02Scammell's worked brilliantly in the jungles and deserts of the Empire too.
14:07Their great off-road capability enabling them to carry huge loads absolutely anywhere.
14:12Even by today's standards, the Pioneer's go-anywhere performance was brilliant.
14:20But back in the 1920s, it was stratospheric.
14:24This is a huge lorry, for goodness sake. How crazy is that?
14:36Scammell's chief designer, Oliver North, had made the concept of a go-anywhere lorry possible.
14:42By inventing a world-beating suspension system in 1927.
14:48Effectively, a seesaw with wheels at either end,
14:52that lets the wheels move up and down as much as four feet,
14:55so they're always in contact with the ground.
14:58It was so far ahead of its time, it was produced right up to the end of World War II,
15:04where the Pioneer was used as a tank transporter.
15:12The Pioneer doesn't do speed, but what it does do in abundance is unstoppability.
15:28It really is absolutely magnificent. It's a huge hulk of a machine.
15:32But the power and the reassuring beat of that giant engine in front of you is just intoxicating.
15:45Whilst all that power doesn't just go to two wheels like it did with most lorries of the day,
15:50it goes to four, which means that if one of your wheels gets stuck in the rough,
15:57you've still got three more to drive you along.
16:00What you do have to watch is the kickback from the steering wheel
16:03if you reach a piece of undulating ground.
16:06on a certain amount of... it will do its own thing.
16:11If you come across a very sharp undulation, it will kick back at you
16:15and it could take your fingers off, which would be very nice.
16:22When it comes to off-roaders, this is the king.
16:26What a beast!
16:29The giant lorry was employed all over the British Empire,
16:32perfect for hauling logs out of jungles and forests where roads were few and far between.
16:39But the role that made the pioneer truly great took it to the Empire's deserts,
16:44where it was instrumental in forging the world we know today.
16:57At the beginning of the 1920s, thanks partly to one Colonel Lawrence,
17:01better known as Lawrence of Arabia, Britain found herself controlling over 50% of all the world's oil fields,
17:09her biggest being in Iran and Iraq.
17:13But that oil was untapped, underground.
17:18Whilst back in Britain, petrol was still in such short supply following World War I
17:22that it was rationed up to 1919 and often just sold in tins from the chemist.
17:29For petrol engines to become the hub of everyday life as they are today,
17:34a lot of new oil would have to flow into Britain and the world.
17:39And that's why the pioneer found itself in the desert.
17:42Its unique off-road capability made it the perfect workhorse for pipeline laying.
17:50Building a pipeline isn't as straightforward as you might think.
17:55It was 628 miles from Britain's biggest Kirkuk oil field in Iraq
18:01to her tankers waiting on the Mediterranean coast.
18:03Meaning 84,000 pipes had to be hauled by the Scamels, off-road across the desert,
18:13ready to be connected together.
18:16The last 55 miles presented the biggest challenge
18:20because it ran steeply downhill from the 2,000-foot-high Arabian plateau
18:26all the way to the sea.
18:31For the oil inside the pipes, it would be like going down the Cresta Run,
18:36making it utterly uncontrollable when it reached the other end.
18:40To solve it, the pioneers had to climb to the top of the plateau
18:45with 670 specially made narrow pipes.
18:49Which, when laid down the steepest part of the hill,
18:52acted like closing off two lanes of a three-lane motorway,
18:57slowing the traffic of oil down so it could be safely loaded onto the tankers.
19:04It was a very ingenious use of a bottleneck.
19:08The great Scamel pioneer played a central role
19:11in opening up the Middle East's oil fields.
19:14But as more and more of the world's oil flowed into Britain,
19:18another problem reared its head.
19:20How to get all that oil, or rather the petrol made from it,
19:25into the hands of the eager motorist.
19:32Chemists and tins could no longer cope,
19:35which is why an institution we now take completely for granted
19:39as, having always been there, was born.
19:42The garage forecourt with petrol pumps.
19:44This is one of those very early petrol pumps.
19:49She's a Gilberton Barker T8, known lovingly to motorists of the day as the Fat Lady.
19:56She's a sturdy affair, cast iron and over seven feet tall.
19:59Up front in her ample bosom, she's got two iron doors hiding her pumping mechanism,
20:08which consists of a hand pump connected to an underground tank.
20:12The attendant had to be fairly dextrous, turning the handle at the rear here,
20:20while at the same time craning around to read the dial.
20:24There we go, one of those, and then again.
20:29I like this Fat Lady.
20:33The Fat Lady stopped singing.
20:38Fat ladies sprang up all over the place, outside cafes, shops and even pubs,
20:46supplying an ever-growing horde of motor vehicles.
20:53But as the demand for petrol went through the roof, another problem reared its head.
20:58How on earth do you safely transport it in bulk to the petrol stations?
21:07A problem solved, once again, by Scammell.
21:12Transporting liquids is an absolute nightmare.
21:15As soon as you move off, they start to slosh around.
21:19The more you stop, start and go round corners, the more they slosh.
21:24Until, at some point, they form a bloody great wave.
21:28And that wave would be enough to tip your lorry over, unless it was massively heavy.
21:33Only leaving you with enough power to carry a small amount of liquid.
21:38Luckily, the boffins at Scammell came up with a solution.
21:43And this is it.
21:45The Scammell Frameless Tanker.
21:48Sadly, there seem to be no 1920s petrol ones left.
21:52But what makes this machine great is that ever since Scammell built their first one in 1926,
21:58whether you were transporting bitumen, petrol or any other fluid,
22:02this became the shape of bulk liquid transporters worldwide, right up to today.
22:08Inside, many had lots and lots of separate compartments.
22:13So any waves that formed could only travel a small way and never gather enough energy to tip you over.
22:20Whilst outside, there's no frame.
22:24On Scammell's Tankers, the wheels simply bolt onto the heavy tank,
22:28minimising overall weight and maximising the liquid you can carry.
22:32Genius. Another great British invention.
22:35OK, so we're coming up to a bend. Let's see how the Scammell and our liquid low cope with it.
22:51Well, it's no longer going horribly wrong in my fish tank.
22:54It's got lots of compartments, you see, just like Scammell's Tankers.
22:59Look, not a sloshy wave in sight.
23:06By the end of the 20s, Scammell's Tankers were helping supply the 60,000 petrol stations
23:11that had sprung up from nothing in the space of just ten years.
23:16The petrol-centred world we know today was forming.
23:26And all manner of machines were now stopping for fuel,
23:30from charabangs to chauffeur-driven Bentleys.
23:33But mostly, they supplied motorcycles.
23:36Britain's motorcycle industry had absolutely boomed during the 20s,
23:42with one-third of all the world's motorbikes being found on Britain's roads.
23:47But there were motorbikes, and there were motorbikes.
23:51Very superior motorbikes.
23:56Lawrence of Arabia loved his Brough Superior,
24:00describing it as skittish with a touch of blood in it.
24:03But what was a Brough Superior?
24:07In the 1920s, it was the fastest, most reliable, most expensive motorcycle in the world.
24:14That's all.
24:16It would cost you the same as half a 1920s house.
24:21And just like Britain's other great speed machine, the Bentley,
24:25it was developed here, on the banked circuit at Brooklands.
24:28Where it held the lap record right up until World War II,
24:33and ultimately, in Hungary, took the world bike speed record to 169.68 miles an hour.
24:40The Brough's 1,000cc overhead valve state-of-the-art racing engine was so powerful,
24:59the frame had to have extra bracing struts to stop it bending when the bike accelerated.
25:04Each one was tested to over 100 miles an hour around Brooklands before it was allowed to go to its new owner.
25:16The world loved them, and so do I.
25:20But nobody loved the law than Lawrence of Arabia.
25:26He had four SS-100s, one after the other.
25:32Lawrence's success in Arabia had made him an A-list celebrity.
25:37But he hated being hounded by the press,
25:40and by the mid-twenties had changed his name and joined the Air Force simply as Aircraftman T.E. Shaw.
25:47He loathed fame, but he loved speed,
25:53and nothing gave him greater pleasure than racing his Brough at breakneck speed through the countryside after work.
25:59Nothing could catch him, until one evening, another speed machine appeared overhead.
26:05In his memoirs he tells of what happened next.
26:09The pilot pointed down the road towards Lincoln.
26:23I sat hard in the saddle, folded back my ears, and went away after him, like a dog after a hare.
26:29Through the plunges of the next ten seconds I clung on,
26:33wedging my gloved hand on the throttle lever so that no bump should close it and spoil our speed.
26:38Then the bicycle wrenched sideways into three long ruts.
26:42It swayed dizzily, wagging its tail for 30 awful yards.
26:46The bad ground was passed, and on the new road our flight became bird-like.
26:53We seemed to whirl soundlessly between the sun-gilt stubble fields.
26:57And I dared on a rise to slow imperceptibly and glance sideways into the sky.
27:04There the fighter was, 200 yards and more, back.
27:10I slowed to 90, signalled with my hand for him to overtake.
27:14Over he rattled.
27:16His passenger, a helmeted and goggled grin,
27:19hung out of the cockpit to pass me the up-ya RAF Randy greeting.
27:34The aircraft might have lost to Lawrence that day in 1926,
27:46but the 1920s as a whole were a great time for British flying machines.
27:51And none more so than for this one, the de Havilland Gypsy Moth,
27:56which, like the Brust Superior, was a machine made truly great by its engine.
28:00But not because it was complex, or state-of-the-art, because it's not.
28:09And that's the point.
28:11Its designer, Geoffrey de Havilland, made sure the Moth's engine was so simple
28:16any budding pilot could maintain it himself.
28:20Originally, he just used scrap World War One engines, finished off with car parts.
28:30But when they started running out of scrap in 1926,
28:33de Havilland's engineer, Frank Halford, built these brand new,
28:37but equally simple, Gypsy One engines to put in their place.
28:41The airframe, on the other hand, or rather the wings, were anything but simple.
28:47Just like the engine, though, they made the Gypsy Moth incredibly practical.
28:51Because, look, if I pull this pin here,
28:59the wings will actually fold back.
29:03Meaning you didn't need a huge hanger for this aircraft.
29:06You could keep it in your garage.
29:10Overnight, this great British machine had made aviation as simple as running a family car.
29:16Indeed, you could use it as the family car.
29:24Look, it's even got a boot.
29:25Especially designed to be big enough to take the golf clubs.
29:31It would cost a bit more than the average car, though.
29:34£750.
29:36The equivalent of £34,000 in today's money.
29:40Expensive, but very cheap for a plane.
29:42Those who could afford it flocked to buy it,
29:47including the Prince of Wales,
29:49who used his to fly to golfing matches,
29:52landing on the fairways.
29:55But the people who bought most of them were the Royal Aero Club.
30:00A national institution who were in the process of setting up flying schools all over the country.
30:06Flying schools for which the easy-to-maintain, easy-to-store moth was perfect.
30:13They bought so many that by the end of the 20s,
30:1785 out of every 100 aircraft in Britain was a moth.
30:24Aero Club lessons cost £1.10 a pop.
30:28About 60 quid in today's money.
30:30Now, it was said that this aircraft was so easy to fly,
30:33it only took eight lessons to get your licence.
30:37Let's just see how true that was, shall we?
30:41This is Nigel Reid.
30:43He's going to try and teach me the 1920s basics.
30:45Away we go. The tail will drag around.
31:02We are now flying. We're up in the Gypsy Moth. Beautiful.
31:15Beautiful.
31:25Absolutely tremendous sight. The green fields down below.
31:29We've just taken off from a field. Absolutely amazing.
31:34We could do that in one of these. Fantastic.
31:36Did you want to line the aeroplane?
31:40Yeah, if I could have a go and take a mistake, if you allowed that.
31:44Yeah, that's right.
31:46When I say you have control, you say I have control,
31:49so then I know you'll remind the aeroplane.
31:50I have control.
31:51So if you like to ease the stick to the left.
31:52I'm just applying a bit of pressure to the control stick,
31:53and already the moth's rolling gently to the left.
31:55That's lovely. If you like to go all the way to level.
31:57That's lovely, Chris. Now we'll get round to the right.
31:58Push the stick to the right.
32:00OK.
32:01It's amazing just how forgiving and simple this thing is to fly.
32:02Oh, oh, oh.
32:03Still a bit of turbo, still a bit of shroud.
32:04Beautiful. Well done.
32:05Just a momentarily, I feel I'm flying.
32:06I'm flying.
32:07I'm flying.
32:08I'm flying.
32:09Yeah, I'm flying.
32:10I'm flying.
32:11I'm flying.
32:12I'm flying.
32:13But already the moth's rolling gently to the left.
32:15That's lovely.
32:16If you like to go all the way to level.
32:17That's lovely, Chris.
32:18Now we'll get round to the right.
32:19Stick to the right.
32:20OK.
32:21It's amazing just how forgiving and simple this thing is to fly.
32:24Oh, oh, oh.
32:26Still a bit of turbo, still a bit of shroud.
32:29Beautiful.
32:30Well done.
32:31Just momentarily, I feel I'm flying this machine.
32:36It's quite exciting.
32:46I have to say, it's a moment like this, I think to myself,
32:49oh, that private pilot's licence would be a good thing to have.
32:54Unbelievably, in the 1920s, a solo lap of the airfield
32:58was pretty much all you had to do to get your flying licence.
33:02That, and one other thing.
33:05Engine failure was a very common event back in the 20s.
33:08So in your test, you had to switch off your engine
33:11to simulate engine failure
33:13and show you could glide down and land in a little circle on the grass.
33:17One of the things that made the MOF great was that if the engine did fail,
33:24it was very easy to repair,
33:26which meant it wasn't just the machine of choice for the 1920s flying schools,
33:32but also for the aerial explorer.
33:36A new breed of aviator who needed an aircraft
33:38that you could crash land in a jungle or a desert
33:41and get going again with the blow of a hammer and a bit of strength.
33:45People like Mary Bailey, who learned to fly in a MOF,
33:49then promptly flew it to South Africa and back via the Congo and the Sahara.
33:55Amy Johnson, who flew hers to Australia.
33:59And forerunner of them all, de Havilland's chief test pilot, Alan Cobham.
34:04In May 1925, Cobham flew the first MOF ever made to Zurich and back in a single day,
34:13just to show what the aircraft was capable of.
34:16Then in November, he set out in the MOF's forerunner, the de Havilland 50,
34:22to try to find commercial air routes to the far-flung corners of the British Empire.
34:26Places that in many cases had never seen a plane before.
34:31Africa.
34:33The Middle East.
34:36Asia.
34:38And Australia.
34:39He created routes to them all, and was immediately knighted on his return in 1926,
34:47when he landed on the Thames in front of a million cheering fans.
34:53Cobham and his moth-flying successors, like Amy Johnson,
34:58were the pathfinders of modern air travel.
35:00Within just a few years of Cobham's flights, international airlines like Britain's Imperial Airways were following in his footsteps,
35:10flying what had gone on to become the long-haul air routes we now take completely for granted.
35:16Fly there, read the Imperial Airways advertising poster,
35:20and helped by Geoffrey de Havilland's little pioneering aeroplanes,
35:24we now can.
35:31The new airliners would mean a lot more business for the rapidly expanding oil industry,
35:37but they weren't going to have it all their own way.
35:41They had competition, from machines that Germans had perfected during World War I.
35:47Machines that relied on hydrogen rather than petrol to keep them aloft.
35:55And machines which, unlike the new airliners that only had a very short range,
36:00were airborne for days, crossing oceans and continents,
36:03whilst carrying ten times the passengers of any aeroplane,
36:07in infinitely greater comfort.
36:10Airships.
36:13They seemed the perfect vehicles for linking the vastness of the British Empire.
36:18So in the 1920s Britain began building passenger airships of her own.
36:22The biggest of all taking shape in this immense 800-foot long hangar at Cardington, the R101.
36:32Here, 27 miles of steel were being attached to 136 feet high, 30-sided polygons,
36:47to create a hollow, steel cigar, the length of two football pitches.
36:55A cigar the 700-strong workforce were filling with 16 giant gas bags,
37:01each one having more volume than four Olympic-sized swimming pools.
37:05It was to be the largest flying machine in the world.
37:20The R101 was so big, it only just fitted in this enormous space.
37:25There were literally only a few feet to spare.
37:30So how could something that big possibly fly?
37:34And how did you drive it?
37:39Let me show you.
37:55Inside my airship, just as in the R101, are 16 gas bags filled with hydrogen.
38:12Just enough hydrogen to lift the airship off the ground and hover.
38:16No more than that.
38:18It's effectively weightless, like a ship floating on the sea.
38:21And just like a ship, if you give it a push, it'll head off in the direction you're pushing it in.
38:32Which is where the R101's giant engines came in, pushing the ship along.
38:40Unlike the sea, though, the air's three-dimensional.
38:43So to let the R101 go up and down, it had giant steel fins, each the length of three gypsy moths, fitted to its stern.
38:54Move the fins, and behaving just like a submarine, it'll rise and fall.
39:00But it's much more complicated than an airborne submarine, because the hydrogen inside misbehaves.
39:06As it heats up in the sunlight, it makes the nose or tail go up and down all by themselves.
39:20All of which meant that the utterly enormous R101 was as complicated to drive as it was to build.
39:28It needed a massive crew of 42, just like a huge ship.
39:39And the similarities with a huge ship didn't stop there.
39:43Look at what they were building on the inside.
39:46Welcome to the lounge, complete with tables and chairs, a writing desk, and some paintings on the walls.
39:56Go up those steps and through that door, you'll find yourself on one of the promenade decks,
40:03where you can relax on a deck chair while you watch the world drift by below you through these massive windows.
40:08These stunning rooms were one of the things that made the R101 great.
40:15No aeroplane, or indeed airship, had anything like it.
40:19And the accommodation didn't stop there.
40:22Unbelievably, for a machine full of hydrogen, there was even a smoking room.
40:28Yes, a smoking room.
40:30Passengers could retire here after dinner for a leisurely cigar.
40:33Safe in the knowledge that the floor was covered in steel and the roof lined with asbestos.
40:40Which was handy, because when hydrogen and flames mix, this happens.
40:51And there was an awful lot of hydrogen on board this ship.
40:56Enough to fill 52 Olympic swimming pools.
40:59So how did airships get their hands on that much?
41:05Were the 20s, as well as developing roadside petrol pumps, developing air-side hydrogen pumps too?
41:12Well, actually, they were.
41:15Very big hydrogen pumps, fed by gas plants, at airship refuelling stations all over the British Empire.
41:22Cardington's hydrogen plant, now in ruins, was on the hill next to it.
41:28With an array of pipes running down under the walls into the shed, ready to fill and lift the giant airship.
41:35But even going at full chat, it still took 19 days for the hydrogen from the plant going through these pipes to fill R101.
41:45It was only then, in 1929, that the boffins, who'd been building the airship in here for three years, suddenly realised they had a problem.
41:59They had a problem.
42:01A very big problem.
42:10When the R101 was inflated with hydrogen, it was found to be massively overweight.
42:15To get her into the air at all, her gas bags had to be inflated so much, they rubbed against the steel cigar frame.
42:25And even then, on her test flights, she could only just stay in the air.
42:31Not helped by numerous leaks and her outer cover repeatedly tearing.
42:35R101 had gone from being a great piece of British engineering to a great big accident waiting to happen.
42:45There was only one thing for it.
42:52Drag her back into the giant shed.
42:55Cut her in half.
42:57Add 45 more feet.
42:59And another four Olympic swimming pools worth of gas bag.
43:03And replaced the entire cover.
43:06After working flat out for two months, so she'd be ready for her first commercial flight as advertised,
43:12the work was completed in September 1930.
43:16And the biggest flying machine in the world, now a staggering 777 feet long,
43:22was pulled back out of the shed by 400 workers.
43:25On the 4th of October, she took off with 54 people on board, heading for India.
43:35She followed the same aerial route as I am, crossing the channel at Hastings.
43:41At around 2am, she flew into heavy rain, and things started to go horribly wrong.
43:48It seems the old cover on the front end of the airship hadn't been fully replaced, leading to it ripping away,
43:57with the rain then soaking the gas bags beneath.
44:01This would have caused the hydrogen to cool down, reducing the lift in the airship's nose, resulting in a steep, slow dive.
44:09The 42 crew desperately tried to get her level again.
44:17But, at eight minutes past two, she ploughed into the ground, just down there.
44:24Faux Bay, in France.
44:25Her hydrogen ignited, and she blew up, killing 48 of the 54 people on board.
44:36Britain's airship program was cancelled immediately, with her remaining airships broken up for scrap.
44:43A few years later, with the tragic destruction of Germany's Hindenburg, the rest of the world gave up on airships too.
44:52Their great range, passenger capacity, and comfort, simply outweighed by their vulnerability to fiery disaster.
45:00And with their demise, hydrogen ceased to be a major fuel for the 20th century, leaving petrol to reign supreme.
45:13Nowhere more so, than at a racing circuit 130 miles from where the R101 crashed.
45:22Le Mans 1930, where WO Bentley's cars were once again coming in first and second.
45:29But, this was to be their swan song.
45:31Because, with the end of the 20s, came the biggest economic crash the world had ever seen.
45:42And with it, the ten-year party of roaring machines, dancing queens and adventurous dreams came to an abrupt end.
45:51Leaving a very nasty hangover.
45:53Many of the cutting-edge, high-tech companies founded at the start of the decade, simply went to the wall.
46:04Bentley Motors were one of them.
46:07Bankrupt by 1931.
46:09Sadly, many of the people who created the Roaring Twenties went the same way.
46:14Just a year after his 1930 victory at Le Mans, Bentley driver Glen Kidston was killed when his de Havilland moth broke up over Africa.
46:26Clive Dunphy, another of WO's Le Mans drivers, died when his Bentley went over the banking at Brooklands in 1932.
46:33And in 1935, Lawrence of Arabia was fatally injured at the controls of his beloved Brough Superior, when he swerved to avoid a boy on a bicycle.
46:48These great British pioneers, however, did leave a legacy.
46:52The machines and infrastructures they forged in the engine-roaring 1920s, formed the very foundations of the modern, petrol-centred world we know today.
47:03Petrol and petrol heads were here to stay.
Recommended
1:04:05
|
Up next
27:50
28:44
28:21
28:05
28:10
1:34
24:43
28:36
23:14
28:44
32:19
30:51
Be the first to comment