Vincent Crane Richmond

Lieutenant-Colonel Vincent Crane Richmond OBE FRAeS. (1893–1930) was an English engineer and airship designer. He served first with the Royal Naval Air Service then the Royal Air Force. He was notable as designer of the Royal Airship Works R101 airship in which he died on 5 October 1930 when it crashed over France on its maiden voyage. National feeling surrounding the disaster was huge; the funeral procession through London was watched by thousands. The bodies were then taken by special train to Bedford to be laid to rest in a communal grave in Cardington cemetery. Richmond's diaries, kept during the trials of the R101, were substantially quoted in the report of the inquiry into the accident and noted a number of concerns regarding the condition of the gasbags.

Inventions and published papers Richmond, along with colleagues was responsible for at least 16 patents relating to the manufacturing of airships:

1921 – "Gas stopping lining for use in aircraft and fixing for same" US 1378804 A 1923 – "Transverse frame for rigid airships" US 1780041 A with George Herbert Scott 1924 – "Construction of rigid airships" US 1656830 A 1926 – Gasbag construction "Some Modern Developments in Rigid Airship Construction", a paper read at the Spring Meetings of the Sixty Ninth Session of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects, 30 March 1928.