Neville Shute Norway, the author, did the stress calculations on the R-100 airship. He recounts flying solo in shirtsleeves from Howden in Yorkshire, where the ship was being built, to a meeting at Cardington in an Airspeed Oxford and landing on the grass outside the sheds.
It was that tale that did more than any other to get my youthful mind to think about the advantages of owning a private aeroplane. But I've never yet landed on the grass at Cardington although I've flown past it many times. I wonder ...
(Actually, if Shute had extolled the advantages of owning a Pink Elelphant, I'd probably have one of those as well).
Edited to say that the timing of this can't be quite right, because the airships were long gone by the time the Oxford appeared, but he did land on the grass at Cardington...