Hangars and Terminals

While in the UK over the New Year, Brian asked to go over to Cardington to see the airship hangars. I grew up with them, and had visited only recently, so I took a lot of persuading to drive on a very cold, miserable and wet day to go and stare at the rotting hulk of number 1 and the movie stage that is number 2. However Brian had pinged the airship mailing list and a gracious invite by Ken Nippress of Hybrid Air Vehicles (thanks Ken!) led to a visit. And it was well worth it.

Skycruise Switzerlands Skyship 600 was in hangar 1, waiting for her next adventure. There were no lights on in the hangar, but the illumination flooding through the holes in the roof, even on a gray day, was enough to see by and take a long exposure. I think you can see why the roof has netting suspended underneath!

Also visiting the hangar were a British author who had written about Zeppelins in a fictional story and an architecture student. The latter had been given a project of designing an airship passenger terminal and was looking at the Cardington site for pointers. Apparently airship terminals are quite a hot topic at the moment. Modern Mechanix covered it yesterday with this very cool picture that assumes that the airships won't get caught by the wind and smash into the side of the building!