Only a few events in the history of the Province of Quebec have produced such a reverberating echo as the coming, in 1930, of the R-100 airship. Not only was the media coverage exceptional, as popular singer Mary Travers (La Bolduc) put it, in one of her songs: «Tout l’monde parle du R-100» or «Everyone’s talking about the R-100». From a regional perspective, the flight of the R-100 was the biggest tourist event in the communities of the Montreal South Shore. From the provincial perspective, it was no less important than Expo 67. In terms of technological challenges, however, the interest was worldwide.
The catastrophe of the R-101 crash in France had as huge a media fallout in this country as in England. Although relatively short, the life spans of the R-100 and R-101 reflected an entire decade of innovation in the history of aviation.
As a majestic spectacle, a technological breakthrough and a media event, the history of the R-100, that beautiful silver aerial ship, the Titanic of the sky, is all of that and much more.. This book relates the success of the first and the failure of the second.
