Prior to 1937, responsibility for civil aviation in the UK, including airworthiness and operation of airships, was vested in the Air Ministry, a Government department, and it was only in 1937 that it was devolved to an independent authority, the Air Registration Board, which is now the Airworthiness Division of the CAA.The first involvement of the CAA with airships occurred early in the present decade when it was confronted firstly with an extremely unorthodox configuration of airship. The Skyship project (Fig. 1) was 720 ft in diameter, 48 million cu ft in volume, and 400 tons pay-load capacity.