R80 (airship)

The R.80 was a British rigid airship that first flew on 19 July 1920 and was the first fully streamlined airship built in Britain. Vickers began it in November 1917 at its Walney Island shed to a design by Barnes Wallis and H. B. Pratt, as a military project for the Admiralty, and completed it for commercial passenger carrying after the Air Ministry stopped work in 1919. Four Maybach engines gave it a top speed of about 70 mph. It proved too small for the passenger role and was used instead to train the United States Navy crew for the ZR-2, then retired and scrapped in 1925 after only 73 flying hours. Its lessons went into the R100, and Wallis introduced colour-coded electrical wiring on it.