Skyluxe Dreamship
The Skyluxe story with the plan and layout posters.
The Skyluxe Dreamship Plan Poster showing the external configuration of the ship.
The Skyluxe Dreamship Layout Poster showing the internal configuration of the ship.
Inspiration
The inspiration for Skyluxe comes from the airship R100, designed by the great engineer Barnes Wallis and the Vickers-Armstrong company. R100 was one of a pair of British rigid airships (the other being R101) completed in 1929 as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme, a British government programme to develop civil airships capable of service on long-distance routes within the British Empire. R100's maiden voyage was a great success, flying to St-Hubert, Quebec Airport just outside Montreal, Canada. The ship toured Canada and returned safely to the UK. The maiden voyage of R101 ended in tragedy. R101 crashed in France, killing 48 of the 54 people on board. Among the passengers killed were Lord Thomson, the Air Minister who had initiated the programme, senior government officials, and almost all the dirigible's designers from the Royal Airship Works. The crash of R101 effectively ended British airship development. The tale of the design of R100 and its claimed superiority to R101 is told in Shute Norway's Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer, first published in 1954. Take what Norway writes about R101 with a pinch of salt.
In the photo above note the dark arch shape and row of rectangles just below the 1 of R-100. Those are the windows in the passenger accommodation section. The accommodation structure was in that central section of the fuselage. The image below shows the internal configuration of R100
Skyluxe Dreamship backstory
The following poster provides the Skyluxe Dreamship backstory.
Skyluxe Dreamship short story "Singapore Sling"
Read the Skyluxe short story Singapore Sling. A young woman's escape from poverty in Singapore and return to England in style on Skyluxe.
Skyluxe Dreamship plan
Skyluxe borrows the R100's elegant profile but is longer than R100 with completely redesigned passenger accommodation. This includes the external front fuselage with the Air Deck. The Air Deck allows passengers to be open to the air as Skyluxe flies - a unique, if windy, experience.
Skyluxe Dreamship layout
Skyluxe Dreamship has to offer more than R100. The first enhancement is the provision of much more passenger accomodation. No longer confined to one section, this runs the length of ship and includes the front structure that sits below the ship's envelope. All this accommodation adds weight. Skyluxe generates the necessary lift by using helium. Helium is not as effective as hydrogen but is much safer. But to make the helium lift more, Skyluxe uses its engines to heat the helium and then controls the pressure in its internal gas bags. The main engines are actually in the central fuselage of the ship. Lightweight and compact high-power diesel engines generate electricity for the ship and to drive the electric motors attached to propellors in the gondolas.
The ship has three classes of accommodation including the Skyluxe cabins. What these cabins lack in terms of floor space they more than make up for in the experience they offer. Passengers sleep in comfortable bunks suspended above the large windows of the ship. You can literally dream amongst the clouds.
The Great Airships represent a magnificent era of air travel. Their ability to silently hang in the air over the Earth remains a unique capability and provided a rare form of vantage point. But with that comes a range of technical challenges that ultimately proved too problematic. That is not say they are lost forever. They may even return to be deployed in the atmosphere of another planet.