R101 would generate favourable publicity for the airship programme. The final trial flight of R101 was originally scheduled for 26 September 1930, but high winds delayed the move from the shed until 1 October. That evening, R101 slipped the mast for its only trial flight before setting off for India. This lasted 16 hours 51 minutes and was undertaken under near-ideal weather conditions; because of the failure of the oil cooler in one engine, it was not possible to carry out full speed trials. The flight was curtailed because of the need to prepare the airship for the flight to India.
Historiography of the Battle of France watershed in public opinion had occurred in mid-1939. May also wrote that the French and British could have defeated Germany in 1938 with Czechoslovakia as an ally and also in late 1939, when German forces in the west were incapable of preventing a French occupation of the Ruhr, which would force a capitulation or a futile German resistance in a war of attrition. France did not invade Germany in 1939, because it wanted British lives to be at risk too and because of hopes that a blockade might force a German surrender without a bloodbath. The French and British also