It was 200 feet high. If you live downtown, it just a few miles from your door. Built in the '20s, it's long gone now, but it was supposed to herald a new day for Montreal industry (and, it can be argued, it sorta did). What was it?Answer: Yes, that's it. It's the airship tower that was built in St. Hubert -- now long gone (the tower, not St. Hub). Blimps, zeppelins, airships -- whatever you want to call them -- could hitch up to it and load, unload, refuel, look cool, etc.
About a million people are came out in the summer of 1930 to see the British Airship, the R-100. Here's a picture from Hugh Dougherty's cool website.
There was no larger airship in the world at that time. The craft had numerous two- and four-berth cabins that could accommodate 100 passengers. Forty-eight people were killed when its sister ship, the R-101, crashed and burned in France. The British program was folded soon after.
That was the airship mooring mast built in St-Hubert airfield, which was specifically built for an eventual imperial airship service, back in the roaring 20’s.
ReplyDeleteThe only airship that ever used the tower was the famed Vickers-built R-100 rigid airship. It hooked it’s nose, and stayed up whilst moored, forcing everything that went on or off to go through the top floor.
Mismeasurements during construction meant that the airship ramp was almost 2 feet off the edge of the top floor, meaning that every passenger had to jump that gap some 70 feet up in the air…
The airship was refueled through here, and for some wonky reason that totally eludes me, the gasoline (sorry, “petrol”) was “pumped-up” via flottation inside a water column.
The tower was eventually demolished when it finally dawned on authorities that having a tower next to an airport runway is a bit unsafe…
(I had the pleasure of flying for the first time from St-Hubert airfield in one of the famed Goodyear blimps).
Wow!
ReplyDeleteWe had a piece of the R-100 fabric in the Peabody family archives here for many years -- since lost in one of many periodic housecleaning purges. An elder Peabody had visited St. Hubert as a lad, specifically to see this aircraft.
ReplyDeleteMr. Peabody
Exactly what I would NOT want to do...jump a gap 70 feet in the air. "Mismeasurements" tells me that the proverbial "Quebec Sait Faire" was alive and well long before the Lesage era.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if many people know that the Empire State Building's mast was originally meant to be used for mooring airships.
ReplyDeleteThere's something really fun about the image of flying right into the heart of Manhattan on a dirigible. Some kind of romantic naive steampunk dream...
And why not airships instead of tramways for mass transit? Plenty of mooring tower sites available on top of all the grattes-ciels.
ReplyDeleteCitizen Peabody
A bit of trivia...the author and aviator Nevil Shute (On the Beach, etc.) made the crossing on the R-100
ReplyDelete