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A Power Car of R100. The man in the centre is Thomas Henry Berry. He worked in aeronautical design all his life and was with Fairey Aviation after the war. He moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1964 and worked at the Government Aircraft Factory or Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation at Fisherman's Bend until he retired. ( JMC ) |
| 1929 : As Secretary of the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club, Shute hires Harry Worrall as Club Manager and Chief Flying Instructor. Shute admires Harry tremendously and considers him an archetypal and ideal pilot. Shute describes Harry glowingly in Slide Rule and his good points are mirrored in The Rainbow and The Rose. |
| Seen here in 1917, Captain Harry V. Worrall (1888 - August 4 th 1957) was Shute's archetypal and ideal pilot. Shute hired him as the Yorkshire Aeroplane Club's instructor in 1929. Of Worrall, Shute said: He didn't want to be the most famous pilot in the world, just the oldest." Worrall's qualities of extreme care and safety were reflected in all Shute's pilot characters. Worrall, who had been a Blackburn Test Pilot, later test flew the Airspeed Ferry and went on to test Lancasters during WW2. Worrall visited Shute in Melbourne in 1957 just before he died. ( EK ) |
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| 1929 -Sherburn |  |
Left to right - Lord Grimthorpe, Nevil Shute, Reg Morris, Harry Worrall, H.A.Love (Reg Morris was Ground Engineer at Sherburn and H.A. Love was Assistant Flying Instructor.) (RMor) |
| Summer 1929 : R100s gasbags are inflated. |
| Autumn 1929 : Shute is officially made Deputy Chief Engineer of R100. |
| Autumn ? 1929 : Shute moves into the St Leonards club in York and drives 20 miles to work each day. |
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This building housed The St Leonards Club at 5 St Leonards in York where Shute lived from the Autumn of 1929 till 1929. (Photo: KD 2003) |
| October 1929 : The government's R101 flies but performs poorly. It is dismantled to insert extra gasbags and lengthened. |
| R101 at the Cardington mast. ( SR ) |
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| November 1929 : The World Economic Depression begins. |
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The starboard side of the nearly completed R100 showing the power car. Note the pools of water on the shop floor presumably from the leaking roof. Shute had remarked on the decaying condition of the shed. ( OU ) |
| November 1929 : R100 is completed. |
| A passenger cabin in R100. ( NAMC ) |
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The 50 seat Dining Room of R100. Nevil Shute is climbing the double staircase to the Observation Lounge. Note, in this publicity shot, the badly ironed tablecloth lower right. ( AO ) |
The kitchen |
| This is the promenade deck of R100. It is inside the airship. There are large windows just off to the right. (see the schematic drawing) Notice the portholes into the cabins. ( AO ) |
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