CARDINGTON AIRSHIP HANGERS 2010

[skeletonkey]

I Visited the Air hangers in Cardington recently
Heres a brief outline of Its History
Cardington became one of the major British sites involved in the development of airships when Short Brothers bought land there to build airships for the Admiralty.
They constructed a 700-foot-long (210 m) airship shed (the No. 1 Shed) in 1915 to enable them to build two rigid airships, the R-311 and the R-32..
The airships site was nationalised in April 1919, becoming known as the Royal Airship Works.



In preparation for the R101 project .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdPrUBkMgdE

The No 1 shed was extended between October 1924 and March 1926.
Its roof was raised by 35 feet and its length increased to 812 feet.
The No. 2 shed (Southern shed), which had originally been located at RNAS Pulham, Norfolk, was dismantled in 1928 and re-erected at Cardington.
The crash of the Airship R101, in October 1930, saw all work stopped in Britain on airships.




In 1936/1937 Cardington started building barrage balloons; and it became the No 1 RAF Balloon Training Unit.
The two airship sheds ceased being part of the RAF Cardington site in the late 1940s and they were put to other uses.
The fence was moved, so they were outside the main RAF Cardington site.
In 1993 planning permission was granted for construction of theatrical stagings and the site was used for rehearsals by musicians including Paul McCartney Band on the Run, U2, Rod Stewart, Take That and AC/DC.



Shed 2 has been leased to Warner Bros. and is used as a studio for film and television productions.
Such as Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Inception .
The film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow was filmed at Cardington in 2004.

For many years until around 2001, one of the sheds was used by the 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. This shed was repainted and looked after in comparison with the other shed.
A company called Airship Industries tried to revive the fortunes of the airship industry in the other shed in the 1980s but the efforts ended in failure.
Then used for the development of a new design of airship, the Skycat,then by the company Hybrid Air Vehicles,Both have since left and Bellway homes are building all around.

Even been used for Topgear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIRo1...eature=related

[skeletonkey]

CHAPTER TWO THE INSIDE

















GOING UP














A few links of interest.

http://www.aht.ndirect.co.uk/index.html

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...26tbs%3Disch:1




Thanks for looking in
SK