IT was 100 years ago this week that one of the greatest feats of aviation ever performed by a Scottish-built aircraft took place over the Atlantic Ocean.

The R34 airship took off from East Fortune airfield in East Lothian early on July 2, 1919, and four days later it landed on Long Island in New York state, becoming the first aircraft of any kind to make the east-west “against the prevailing winds” crossing of the Atlantic. On July 9, R34 took off from the US and flew back across the Atlantic to Pulham near Norwich in three days, thus becoming the first aircraft to make a return journey over the Atlantic.

The centenary of the voyage is not being marked with any great ceremony, which is a real pity, as this was very much an exciting and world-leading feat of Scottish engineering that required no little bravery on the part of its commander and crew.

The R34 and its sister ship the R33 were rigid airships ordered for the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) for service in World War One. The signing of the Armistice came while they were under construction, and they never saw active service. The RNAS, meanwhile, merged with the Royal Flying Corps to become the Royal Air Force, the first independent air force in the world.

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The RAF wanted to demonstrate British mastery of the skies, and winning the race to fly the Atlantic was the way to prove it.

Based on the design of a captured German Zeppelin – Germany was the world’s leading airship nation at the time – the R34 was built at a cost of £350,000 by the Inchinnan Airship Constructional Station of William Beardmore and Company, owners of the Parkhead Forge and best known for the Royal Navy capital ships and commercial oil tankers which they built on the Clyde at Dalmuir. Beardmore was also a pioneering builder of military airplanes, including the Beardmore WB III, which was the mainstay of the Royal Navy’s first aircraft carriers.

Beardmore’s Inchinnan yard would construct five airships in all, the most famous being the R34 which required the company to make several innovations to accommodate its five engines that powered the propellers.

Some 643ft long, R34 was intended to be an experimental patrol or spotter airship to test long-distance flying, and was not intended for passengers, so when it was proposed to fly the airship over the Atlantic, it had to have hammocks fitted.

After its first flight from Inchinnan to East Fortune via Yorkshire, R34 went on training and trial flights, but sustained damage during one trial, and that delayed her departure for the USA – so much so that John Alcock and the Glasgow-born Arthur Brown were able to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight on June 14/15.

Her commander for the Atlantic crossing, Major George Scott, was a Londoner who had been involved with airships since 1915 – he was captain of the No 9r, the first British rigid airship to actually fly. He had designed airships and their parts and oversaw R34’s construction at Beardmore, with whom he forced a close connection.

In fact, he married Jessie, the daughter of Beardmore manager Archie Jack Campbell, and they would have four children in all.

Even though Alcock and Brown had beaten them to the first non-stop crossing, the Air Ministry wanted to know if airships could be the answer to long-distance air travel, while Scott was determined to make the first east-west and return flights over the Atlantic.

It was a huge risk, but Jennie Campbell Scott summed up the mood of the day when the press asked her if she was worried: “My father built her, my husband commands her. Why should I worry?”

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FILLED with hydrogen gas and 5000 gallons of engine fuel, the airship took off at 1.48am on July 2, and its first “crisis” occurred just after 2pm when two stowaways emerged – a kitten named Wopsie and a crew member, William Ballantyne, 22, who defied being ordered to stay at base.

Had they been over land, Scott would have made him parachute to the ground as his weight affected the all-important fuel consumption rate.

On they flew, the crew constantly attentive to every aspect of the airship. Scott did his best to avoid fog and cloud, but inevitably they had to fly “blind” at times, and it was Scott who pressed on relentlessly. Out into the Atlantic skies they flew, heading further west than any Europeans had ever flown.

They flew over Newfoundland and down the Canadian coast and eastern seaboard to Mineola on Long Island, where the airship’s navigator, Major John Edward Mattock Pritchard, parachuted out of the R34 to organise the landing crew. Pritchard did a good job and R34 came slowly into land, touching down at 9am local time, 108 hours and 12 minutes after take-off.

Thousands of Americans turned out to welcome R34, acknowledging the courage of the crew in going so much further west than any previous airship. It had been a close-run thing – there was just 40 minutes worth of fuel left in her tanks. After a rapturous reception and a couple of days’ rest, Scott was ordered by the Air Ministry to return, and being warned of high winds, the crew hurriedly prepared R34, which took off at 11.54pm on July 9, flying over New York where vast crowds watched the craft being picked out by spotlights.

The tail winds helped the airship return much faster, taking just three days and three hours to reach the UK, though somewhat mysteriously, the Air Ministry ordered Scott to fly on and land at Pulham in Norfolk rather than East Fortune – even then the airship was not seen as the future, and the number of fatal accidents later suffered by British airships bore that out.

Scott himself died in the most infamous British airship disaster of them all, the explosion and fire which killed 48 of the 54 people on board the R101 on October 5, 1930, the crash ending the UK airship development programme. But 100 years ago this week, a Scottish-built airship led the world.