13 July 2016
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Airship crosses Atlantic
Airship R34 landed in Norfolk having completed the first airship return journey across the Atlantic on 13 July 1919.
On this day in history, 1919: airship R34 lands in Norfolk having completed the first airship return journey across the Atlantic. She hadn’t been designed to carry passengers and so hammocks were slung up in the walkway, and food was heated up on an engine exhaust pipe. Her adventurous crew of 26 were nothing if not brave and inventive. Nicknamed ‘Tiny’ she actually measured a whopping 643 feet long, and was flown for a further two years before being damaged in bad weather in early 1921 and scrapped.
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Watch this clip of the R34 landing in America at the end of the first leg of its return journey:
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