differential engine control to help with directional control, reaching Pulham at 9.15pm. After repairs and strengthening work she re-emerged in June for a successful series of test flights, including an endurance trial starting on 10 June which lasted nearly 30 hours, covering 734 miles (1,174 km) over land and sea. She was also used by the Metropolitan Police for observing traffic congestion caused by the Ascot Races. Journalists and senior police representatives were entertained in great comfort on the day, and the journalists stories were dropped by parachute over Croydon airfield. On 21 June, returning from another trial flight, she suffered damage during landing. The release of emergency ballast caused a sharp pitching up, straining the ship against the mooring line. The nearest unoccupied sheds were at Howden in Yorkshire since the Pulham sheds were holding German Zeppelins handed over as war reparations. The wind increased and it was decided that the LZ 109 (L 64) would have to be sacrificed to save the R.36. Within 4 hours L 64 had been cut into pieces and cleared to give enough room for R36. Even then she was damaged by a gust of wind during the manoeuvre into the shed. Repairs were delayed while policy on airships was reviewed because of the R38 disaster and economic conditions. In 1925 she was refurbished for an experimental flight to Egypt as part of the Imperial Airship Scheme, but calculations cast doubt on her ability to make the trip as R.36 would require 13.65 tons of fuel for the trip, leaving only 2.35 tons for ballast, crew, passengers, cargo, and mail which was ridiculous. In the light of her age and condition she was scrapped in 1926. The total flying time achieved by R.36 was less than 100 hours when she was broken up in June 1936. The passenger accommodations of R.36 grotesquely exceeded the carrying capacity of the airship, something which was also true of the only other British passenger airships R.100 and R.101 which historian Robin Higham described as "a very real example of the predicament into which optimists landed themselves." Operators Air Ministry Metropolitan Police Specifications Notes References Brooks, Peter W. Zeppelin: Rigid Airships 1893-1940Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington D.C., 1992 . Lord Ventry and Eugene Kolesnik,Airship saga: The history of airships seen through the eyes of the men who designed, built, and flew them , 1982, Manfred Griehl and Joachim Dressel,