A New York Times Bestselling Author
British airship R101 went down in a hydrogen-fueled fireball in 1930. R101 was the lynchpin of a British scheme to link by air the far-flung areas of its empire, from Australia to India, South Africa, Canada, Egypt, and Singapore. Gwynne's chronicle features Lord Christopher Thomson, the man who dreamed up the Imperial Airship Scheme, and Herbert Scott, a national hero who had made the first double crossing of the Atlantic in any aircraft in 1919. These figures - and the ship they built, flew, and crashed - come together in a tale that details the rocky road to commercial aviation.