Europa Airship

I once saw it flying over Dunstable in Bedfordshire – I took a photograph and the slide frame is dated July 1973, which gives a very approximate date. I saw it again at the International Air Tattoo in 1979. The serial, incidentally, was N2A.

Here it is over Waterlow Road in Dunstable. Found this image recently within an old family collection of photos.

Between 1973 and 1985 I was lucky enough to fly 3 flights (3 hrs in total) on board the Goodyear Airship. The airship was usually stationed at Schiphol Airport for the yearly F1 Grand Prix at Zandvoort. Attached are a few pictures which were probably taken in 1973 and a certificate of my last flight in this airship in 1985.

Here it is at Shoreham in 1984.

I once saw it flying over Dunstable in Bedfordshire – I took a photograph and the slide frame is dated July 1973, which gives a very approximate date. I saw it again at the International Air Tattoo in 1979. The serial, incidentally, was N2A.

From what i remember the airship came down at Cottern End as all the school children where on tv. The local pub The Bell? there use to be full of airship photos form the 1930s, when i worked on the roof in the 1980’s. Dont think its still open! All the R101 crew used it as there local watering hole. I dont think the airship flew again. I flew in one of the last Skyship 600 flights after the company had gone broke in the late 1980s I think.

Dave

Back in the early 1970’s I remember as a school boy in Bedford watching the silver GoodYear Blimp ‘Europa’ in the skies around Cardington. On one occasion I believe it broke free from it’s moorings and ended up as a deflated silver wreck in a nearby village (c 1974). I think that was the last time I saw it, although I understand it did fly again.

Can anyone help me with more information? Did it fly again and where is it now? I don’t think it’s flying anymore, replaced by more modern Good Year airships, but I would love to know whether it has been kept in the corner of some dusty hanger or lost forever.

Did have some photos of this somewhere. I bunked off school to see the mess. The pilot at the time was Dick Widdecombe. After the crash it was repaired with a new envelope and then was based in Italy. Goodyear ceased operations with it in Europe after another deflation incident in southern France at the end of 1986. They sold the Italian hangar as a cost cutting exercise at the time.

See this thread in which I included one of my photos of the Goodyear airship when it was in the UK in the early 1970s.
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=50207&highlight=Airship+Industries