The
Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) England
, was a
British research establishment latterly under the UK Ministry of Defence
(MOD).
The first
site was at Farnborough
Airfield
("RAE Farnborough") in Hampshire to which was added a second site
RAE Bedford (Bedfordshire) in 1946.The Marine Aircraft Experimental
Establishment
was incorporated into the RAE around the start of
the Second World War, the marine
side relocating from Felixstowe
on the vulnerable East Anglian
coast to Helensburgh
in Scotland.
In 1988 it was renamed the
Royal Aerospace
Establishment before merging with other research entities
to become the new
Defence
Research Agency in 1991.
Royal Aircraft Factory
It was created in 1908 as
HM Balloon Factory.In
October that year
Samuel Cody made the
first aeroplane flight in Britain at Farnborough.
In 1911 it was renamed the
Royal Aircraft Factory
(RAF).Among its designers was
Geoffrey de Havilland who later
founded his own company, and
Henry
Folland - later chief designer at
Gloster Aircraft Company, and
founder of his own company
Folland
Aircraft.
Aircraft Factory designs
Between 1911 and 1918 the Royal Aircraft Factory generated a number
of aircraft designs. Most of these were essentially research
aircraft, but a few actually went into mass production, especially
during the war period. Some orders were met by the factory itself,
but the bulk of production was by private British companies, some
of which had not previously built aircraft.
Up to about 1913 the model letters came from the general layout of
the aircraft, referring to a French manufacturer or designer famous
for that type:
- S.E. = Santos Experimental
(Canard or tail-first
layout)
- B.E. = Bleriot Experimental
(Tractor or propeller-first
layout)
- F.E. = Farman Experimental
(Pusher or propeller behind the
pilot layout)
From 1913/4 onwards this was changed to a designation based on the
role for which the aircraft was designed:
- S.E. = Scout experimental
(single seat fighters)
- F.E. = Fighting experimental
(although they remained "Farmans" in the sense of being
pushers)
- R.E. = Reconnaissance
experimental (two-seat machines)
The B.S.1 of 1913 was a one-off anomaly, combining both systems:
Bleriot (tractor)
Scout
(fighter).
Designs produced
Royal Aircraft Factory type designations are inconsistent and
confusing. For instance the "
F.E.2" designation refers to
three quite distinct types, with only the same broad layout in
common, the F.E.2 (1911), the F.E.2 (1913), and finally the famous
wartime two seat fighter and general purpose design, the F.E.2
(1914). This last aircraft was the one that went into production,
and had three main variants, the F.E.2a, F.E.2b, and the F.E.2d. As
if this wasn't enough, there is the F.E.2c; this was a generic
description rather than a subtype proper, and refers to several
one-off conversions of F.E.2b's that experimentally reversed the
seating positions of the pilot and the observer.
The B.E.1 was basically the prototype for the early
B.E.2 — but the B.E.2c was
really a completely new aeroplane, with very little commonality
with the earlier B.E.2 types. On the other hand the B.E.3 to the
B.E.7 were all effectively working prototypes for the B.E.8 and
were all very similar in design, with progressive minor
modifications of the kind that many aircraft undergo during a
production run. The B.E.8a was at least as different from the B.E.8
as the B.E.7 was.
The S.E.4a had nothing in common at all with the S.E.4, while the
S.E.5a was simply a
late production S.E.5 with a more powerful engine.
Several early RAF designs were officially "reconstructions" of
wrecked aircraft, because the Factory did not initially have
official authority to build aircraft to their own design. In most
cases the type in question used no parts whatever from the wreck,
in some cases not even the engine. Included in this list are the
Cody and
Dunne designs built
and/or tested at Farnborough- although these were not strictly
Royal Aircraft Factory types.
Engines
Controversy
At the time of the "
Fokker Scourge"
in 1915, there was a
press campaign
against the standardisation of Royal Aircraft Factory types in the
Royal Flying Corps, allegedly in
favour of superior designs available from the design departments of
private British firms. This slowly gained currency, especially
because of the undeniable fact that the B.E.2c and B.E.2e were kept
in production and in service long after they were obsolete and that
the B.E.12 and B.E.12a were indisputable failures. Some of this
criticism was prejudiced and ill-informed.
Some aviation historians continue to perpetuate the resulting
belittling of the important experimental work of the Factory during
this period, and the exaggeration of the failings of Factory
production types, several of which were described in sensationally
derogatory terms.
A modern, rather more "pro-factory" point of view, can be found in
several of the volumes of
War Planes of the First World
War, by J.M. Bruce—MacDonald, London, 1965.
Changes to RAE
In 1918 the Royal Aircraft Factory was once more renamed, becoming
the
Royal Aircraft Establishment to avoid confusion with
the
Royal Air Force, which was
formed on 1 April 1918.
After the end of the First World War design and development of
aircraft types ended - although work continued on general research,
and the development of missiles - in particular.
- RAE Target—Surface-to-surface missile project from the early
1920s.
- RAE Larynx—1927
unmanned pilotless aircraft, surface-to-surface anti-ship
missile.
During the
Second World War the RAE worked on
engine problems at Farnborough. It was here that
Beatrice Shilling invented the
Miss Shilling's orifice for
RAF's
Hurricane and
Spitfire fighters during the
Battle of Britain.
Rockets
In the late fifties and through the sixties work proceeded at the
RAE on several rocket projects - all of which were eventually
abandoned
Mergers
During WW2
the Marine Aircraft Experimental
Establishment was incorporated into the RAE, as its whole
establishment was relocated from the East Anglian coast to a safer location in Helensburgh, Scotland.
In 1946
work began to convert RAF Thurleigh
into RAE Bedford.
In 1988 the RAE was renamed the
Royal Aerospace
Establishment.
On 1 April 1991 the RAE was merged into the
Defence Research Agency (DRA), the
MOD's new research organisation. Then, on 1 April 1995 the DRA and
other MOD organisations merged to form the
Defence Evaluation and
Research Agency (DERA).
In 2001
DERA was part-privatised by the MOD, resulting in two separate
organisations, the state-owned Defence
Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), and the
privatised QinetiQ
, a
Public-Private
Partnership.
Functions
The
Farnborough site is currently home to QinetiQ, DSTL, the Air Accidents Investigation
Branch and the British National Space Centre
. The Bedford site was largely shut down in
1994.
Many aircraft have been developed or tested at the RAE including
the
B.E.2,
F.E.2,
R.E.8,
S.E.5,
Hawker Siddeley Harrier and
Concorde.
The historic Farnborough factory site houses three major
wind tunnels, the 24' low speed wind tunnel
(Q121 Building), constructed during the early 1930s, the No. 2
11.5' low speed wind tunnel (R136 Building) and the 8' x 6'
transonic wind tunnel within R133 Building, which was originally
commissioned in the early 1940s as a 10' x 7' high subsonic speed
tunnel, but converted during the mid 1950s. A smaller 2' x 1.5'
transonic tunnel is housed in R133 Building, while R52 Building
contains the remaining 4' x 3' low turbulence wind tunnel. R52
building had previously housed two early 10' x 7' low speed tunnels
in separate bays, which were replaced by the No. 1 11.5' and 4' x
3' tunnels respectively. The former remains in operation at the
University of Southampton. R52 building also previously contained a
5' open jet low speed tunnel, originally built as a sub-scale
prototype for the larger 24' tunnel, but subsequently modified for
use as a noise measurement facility. Both Q121 and R133 are now
Grade I
listed buildings.
To the west of the Farnborough site is the 5 metre pressurised low
speed wind tunnel, which was commissioned in the late 1970s.
This
facility remains in operation by QinetiQ, primarily
for the development and testing of aircraft high lift
systems.
Fictional appearance
The hero of
Neville Shute's 1948 novel
No Highway is an eccentric "boffin" at
Farnborough who predicts
metal fatigue
in Britain's new airliner, the
Rutland Reindeer.
Interestingly, the
Comet failed
for just this reason in 1954. A film of the novel appeared in
1951.
See also
References
- John Lloyd Aircraft of World War I 1958 Ian Allan
publisher, Surrey, UK
- Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War I Military
Press, New York 1990—ISBN 0-517-03376-3.cn
External links
aviation
museum on the site of the RAE
, Felixstowe
, a branch of the RAE used for design and testing of
gas turbine engines
Wikis
Quiz
Map
Search
