Building R133 At Former Royal Aircraft Establishment

Building R133 is a wind tunnel and building for aeroplane testing. It was originally constructed between 1939 and 1942 as a variable density high-speed 10 foot by 7 foot tunnel of the return-flow type. Between 1951 and 1956, it was substantially modified to become a transonic 8 foot by 6 foot tunnel. The building is of reinforced concrete frame construction with flat roofs and incorporates a steel cylinder. It is rectangular in plan and rises to 2 and 3 storeys. The fenestration consists mainly of 3-light metal casements.

Interior

The central test area contains a steel plate symmetrical cooled cylinder flask measuring 41 metres long by 11.3 metres in diameter, which houses the 8 foot by 6 foot working section and fan. The walls have 6-inch cork thermal insulation. The test chamber includes measuring equipment and transducers. To the south is a control room with original fixtures. The east cross wing contains the engine room. The west cross wing contains the refrigeration plant which served to cool the outer shell of the test chamber, along with compressors to raise or lower the pressure of the test area.

The upgrading of the tunnel between 1951 and 1956, when the core flask was rebuilt with slotted sides and the fan power increased from 4 to 12,000 horsepower, entailed the addition of an additional refrigeration plant area to the west and two extensions in the angles of the north elevation and cross wings. To the north-west are tanks for coolant (brine), and to the north-east is the compressor house, with a further 2 foot by 1.5 foot transonic tunnel of 1954-6, and an axial compressor which supplied a further 8000 horsepower of power to the main tunnel via ducts.

Historical Context

Farnborough is one of the key sites in Europe relating to the development of aviation, particularly powered flight and its impact on the human experience in the twentieth century. Despite the use of balloons as aerial observation platforms during the Napoleonic Wars and especially the American Civil War, it was not until 1879 that the Royal Engineers formed a Balloon Equipment Store at Woolwich Arsenal, which was subsequently moved to Chatham in 1882, then Aldershot in 1890, and finally Farnborough in 1905. Its operational and training units were combined as the Balloon Factory in April 1906, the same year seeing the construction of the army's first airship shed at the Balloon School's new factory (demolished 1965) and 1910-11 the erection of two more airship sheds (moved to Kingsnorth and demolished circa 1930) adjacent to a new 'Portable Airship Shed'. The latter, a canvas-covered shed comprising in section a parabolic arch made up of rivetted box-section lattice units, was dismantled and now survives in two halves: the bottom half in a fabric shop and the upper half in a forge and foundry building. Both of these buildings, erected in 1916-17 for the Aircraft Factory at Farnborough, are now listed grade II (as Buildings Q65 and R51). Despite the fact that the country's total of 6 airship sheds had increased to 61 by November 1918, only the examples at Farnborough and at Cardington have survived. These are survivals of importance and great rarity in a European context, particularly in view of the lack of survivals in Germany, which led the field in this technology. The balloon house of 1892-3, moved to Farnborough from Aldershot, was listed in 1979 and demolished ten years later.

The American Samuel Cody, who had worked on the development of kites and balloons at Farnborough, designed, built and flew, in October 1908, the British Army's first airplane. Under R.B. Haldane, whose tenure of office as Secretary of State for War between 1906 and 1911 witnessed the triumph of the materiel school of warfare in the debate concerning the future direction of Britain's armed forces, aviation was put on a scientific footing. An Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (which as the Aeronautical Research Council continued until 1980) was established in order to advise government and oversee research at the National Physical Laboratory at Teddington and the Army Aircraft Factory, as the Balloon Factory was renamed, at Farnborough. The formation of the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers in April 1911 formally recognised the role of military flying, and the headquarters of No 1 (Airship) Company was immediately established on the site. This unit became 1 Squadron of the RFC (the Royal Flying Corps) on its formation on 13 May 1912, and served as the Royal Naval Air Service's Airship Detachment until the completion of Kingsnorth in March 1915. The Battalion's headquarters building (Building G1), which includes a balloon mobilisation store, is an outstanding and unique survival from this period. One hangar survives from the pre-First World War air station.

The planning of the R52 wind tunnel building in 1916 marked a critical period in Farnborough's development, for public censure over the vulnerability of the Royal Aircraft Factory's BE2c fighter had led to its closure as a site for the manufacture of aircraft by the British state. Farnborough, renamed the Royal Aircraft Establishment, was now placed at the heart of cutting-edge developments in what was already the iconic industry of the age, and after the creation of the Air Ministry in 1918 was sustained by the 'largest Research and Development spending institute in Britain'. Two new tunnels were built in 1931, one of these (the 'five foot' tunnel in R52) being the prototype for Q121, constructed in 1934-5. With the increasing speeds and performance of aircraft, another high-speed wind tunnel (R133) was planned from 1937, work for which begun in February 1939 and was completed in November 1942. These remarkable structures are, with the protected tunnels at Meudon (Paris, France), Johannistahl (Berlin, Germany) and Langley Field (Virginia, United States), some of the most impressive monuments to twentieth century technology in the world.

Wind Tunnel Technology

Wind tunnels (the first being built at Greenwich in 1871) were essential tools for the understanding of aerodynamics, an extension of the science of fluids which pushed at the boundaries of knowledge relating to mathematical theory and physics. They provided the key to unlocking the potential for the greater altitude, speed and handling characteristics of aircraft, developing a wide range of concepts including wing profiles, wing components and composition, plane stability criteria, strength standards, and flutter theory. The rapid changes advanced by the twentieth century's iconic industry—aviation—witnessed matching developments in the design of these tunnels, key factors in their performance being the size of the model, the speed of air flow and the atmospheric pressure.

In order to reduce turbulence and enable accurate analysis and measurement of the forces exerted on the object in the test area, wind tunnels used fans to suck air over the test area, at first blowing it out of the other end of the building (as with R52 and the tunnel at Chalais Meudon in France) and then recycling it in a closed circuit within the building, as with the 1931 extension to R52 and Q121. Tunnels of this type operate at normal air pressure, so that full-size aircraft could be craned into the test areas. The Full Scale Tunnel built in 1929-31 for NASA's predecessor the NACA at Langley, Virginia, represented a world first in this respect. Q121 at Farnborough, with its original internal fittings and its internal fin system for turning the air through 360 degrees, is the largest and most complete example in Europe.

The pressurised tunnels designed from the 1920s enabled reliable tests to be carried out on small-scale models at low air speed. Variable density tunnels, being surrounded by a steel shell which was filled with compressed air, allowed the density of air to be varied according to the size of the model and other factors. The first was built at Langley, Virginia, in 1923, and survives with most features intact. The much larger high speed tunnel at Farnborough (R133) was completed in 1942, this being capable of measuring the effects of air speeds of Mach 0.8 to 1.2 at pressures from one-tenth to 3 atmospheres. This is uniquely important within a European context. The speeds of air within the tunnel—600 miles per hour—generated considerable heat, and thus the need for a coolant (potassium chloride brine) that kept the temperature within the test area at around 15 degrees Celsius. This need increased after modification, as speeds exceeded the speed of sound (Mach 1).

The next stage in wind tunnel design was modification, first effected on the 8 foot tunnel at Langley Park in 1950, to enable testing at transonic speeds, as the projected speed of aircraft—and the need to predict the effectiveness of new designs—approached and then exceeded the sound barrier (Mach 1, broken in 1947, Mach 2 being broken in 1953). The original 10 by 7 foot high speed tunnel within R133 was very skilfully converted to transonic testing in 1951-6 by reducing its working section to 8 by 6 foot, installing slotted sides to eliminate rebound of the supersonic shock waves, and upgrading power input by 16,000 horse power. Half of this power was supplied by an axial compressor, which was also able to run a unique variable-density 2 by 1½ foot wind tunnel capable of speeds up to 1100 miles per hour (Mach 1.4), where the model can be observed through glass walls. The compressor, 2 by 1½ tunnel and additional cooling facilities were built in extensions on the north side of the building. As a cooled cylinder flask constructed for high speed testing—a unique survival in Europe—the completion of this tunnel placed Farnborough at the global forefront of aerodynamic development, through its work on understanding transonic flow phenomena and shock wave effects. Four of the derivative designs (Bedford ARA of 1954 and 1956, Blackburn Bae of 1961 and English Electric of 1960) are still in use.

Role in Aviation Development

The Royal Aircraft Establishment spearheaded the British state's technocratic approach to the support of military and, especially in the period 1945-70, civil aviation, working in partnership with private companies by using its experts and facilities to develop new aircraft on the cutting edge of aerodynamic science. Thus the Air Ministry placed contracts for prototypes with approved firms, using the wind tunnels at Farnborough in order to monitor and pioneer advances in aeronautical research, including aerodynamic theory, construction, fuels and engines. The decision to build a large open-section tunnel (Q121) at the RAE resulted from the need to test full-size planes as well as models, and understand the effect of running engines on aerodynamic performance. It played a key role in the development of new generations of aircraft, including Sydney Camm's Hurricane, Mitchell's Spitfire and the four-engined bomber force.

By the end of the Second World War, the RAE was placed at the heart of a huge technological base which employed over 1.5 million people. The high-speed tunnel of 1939-42 (R133) was used during the Second World War to test models relating to modifications to and prototypes of, most notably, the Mustang, Spitfire and Typhoon fighters, in addition to Frank Whittle's Gloster E.28/39, the first jet-propelled aircraft to be flown in the UK.

In the immediate post-war years the levels of Research and Development funding increased, and Farnborough became the largest research and development establishment in Europe, developing the 'hot science' that underpinned NATO's attempts to counter the Soviet military threat. Slow progress on the establishment of the National Aeronautical Establishment, founded in 1947 at Bedford, ensured that the Aerodynamic Department at Farnborough played a critical role for much of the Cold War in devising quick-reaction aircraft that could both carry nuclear weapons and defend Britain and NATO against high-speed Soviet bombers. Particularly valuable was its unique expertise in transonic and supersonic aerodynamics.

The RAE's wind tunnels had been used during the Second World War to develop work on high-speed aircraft, the immediate post-war years seeing the team at Farnborough—now bolstered by German scientists who had worked on rocket and fighter weapons programmes—take a global lead in work on experimental transonic swept-wing aircraft. This work included in 1949 the English Electric P.1 (becoming the Lightning fighter) the 'most potent interceptor in the world at the time... to leapfrog a whole generation of fighters' and the development of the 'V'-bomber force (operational from 1955) and the aerodynamics and viability of its nuclear payload. Work also included the testing of the Fairey Delta and the TSR2.

Work on Mach 2 fighters then paved the way for the pioneering work on narrow delta aircraft for supersonic flight from the mid 1950s by the German scientists Dietrich Kuchemann and Johanna Weber on its theory and mathematics, followed by empirically-based testing in the wind tunnels led by W.E. Grey. This groundbreaking work put the RAE firmly in the lead on the world stage, culminating in the Concorde project. As one historian has pointed out, the RAE 'fuelled the post-war university expansion in aerodynamics', contributed its chief scientists to major players such as Lockheed and Martin-Marietta and 'throughout the Cold War... served as the main and enduring core of European aerodynamic knowledge'.