I've been researching the R101 for a couple of years as a fairly serious amateur aviation historian, and as a flight test specialist who wants to learn the lessons from R101 that seem to have been forgotten by most of the world. I've given a few lectures and papers about the story, and will certainly develop a bigger paper and am seriously looking at writing a book on it.
I absolutely agree, GH Scott is one of the most fascinating people in aviation history. He was clearly an incredible airship pilot - just look at his crossing of the Atlantic in 1919, as well as a number of other very successful flights.
I think that he was driven - there were incidents in his past that were likely to create a "difficult" mindset.
In 1919 he was Captain of the R34 when it made the first 2-way crossing of the Atlantic, which was an amazing achievement. It should have been the first ever direct Atlantic crossing, but a ground collision of the same airship under his command delayed departure and so Alcock and Brown both got knighthoods - whilst he and his crew were relatively unrecognised for their achievement.
He had commanded several airships which had suffered accidents - in each case not long after he'd taken control from the officer who had been in command immediately prior. This creates an interesting paradigm which I think had affected his mindset. I'm sure that his mindset was that in difficult conditions he'd taken command to try and achieve a safe outcome but despite being one of the most capable airship pilots in the world he'd still failed. The rumour mill of the 1920s however, had it that he had several times arrogantly taken control from a more current pilot, then fouled it up. In my opinion, the first view is closer to the truth - but he can't have been unaware of the rumours and opinions doing the rounds.
A further aspect is that I'm sure he wished he was in direct command of the R101 himself, rather than Flt.Lt. Irwin and was dealing with that internally.
The perception in 1929/1930 amongst his peers was that GHS had been probably the best airship pilot in the world, but was "off the boil" and needed to be kept away from directly flying airships any more. I'm sure that there was truth in that, as he was clearly a "do-er" who'd been moved into management, and somebody who had achieved great things but largely been passed over for the public recognition that arguably, and I'm sure he believed that, he deserved.
Footless is quite right that the loss of the R101 was a classic piece of swiss cheese, but arguably all the slices had been lined up the moment the ship slipped her mast. I don't think from my researches that GHS was the largest player in lining the slices up, but equally he had the ability and perhaps the power to stop things getting to that point, but he failed. I think that the desperate desire for public recognition was probably fundamental to that failure.
G