Cardington Airship Hangers

Thursday, 20th April 2006 by

The Cardington Airship Hangers were originally built to house the R101 airship which was intended to be used to ferry cargo and passengers from the UK to India in the 1930s. These airships, as you can tell from the size of the hangers were huge, over 700ft long. Unfortunately on its maiden voyage the airship crashed into a hillside near Beauvais, north of Paris. The crash ignited the hydrogen gas bag and fire quickly engulfed the entire airship. This spelled the end of the British attempt to create lighter-than-air aircraft and the R101's competitor, the R100, was scrapped despite a safe trans-atlantic trial flight.

The South hanger is now owned by Airship Technologies, who are trying to revive the airship business. The North hanger is used as a super big sound stage for films. Most of the outdoor Gotham Cty scenes for Batman Begins were filmed inside the hanger, aswell as several recent James Bond films.

airship hangers

Thanks: Loz