The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), before finally losing its identity in mergers with other institutions. The first site was at Farnborough Airfield ("RAE Farnborough") in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

to which was added a second site RAE Bedford ( Bedfordshire) in 1946. In 1988 it was renamed the Royal Aerospace Establishment (RAE) before merging with other research entities to become part of the new Defence Research Agency in 1991.

History

In 1904–1906 the Army Balloon Factory, which was part of the Army

School of Ballooning The School of Ballooning was a training and test centre for British Army experiments with balloons and airships. It was established at Chatham in Kent in 1888. The School moved to Stanhope Lines, Aldershot in 1890 when a balloon section and dep ...

, under the command of Colonel James Templer, relocated from Aldershot to the edge of Farnborough Common in order to have enough space to inflate the new "dirigible balloon" or

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

which was then under construction.Walker, P; Early Aviation at Farnborough, Volume I: Balloons, Kites and Airships, Macdonald, 1971. Templer's place was taken by Colonel John Capper and Templer himself retired in 1908. Besides balloons and airships, the factory also experimented with Samuel Franklin Cody's war kites and aeroplanes designed both by Cody and J. W. Dunne. In October 1908 Cody made the first aeroplane flight in Britain at Farnborough. In 1909 Army work on aeroplanes ceased and the Factory was brought under civilian control. Capper was replaced as Superintendent by Mervyn O'Gorman. In 1912 the Balloon Factory was renamed the Royal Aircraft Factory (RAF). Its first new designer was Geoffrey de Havilland who later founded his own company. Later colleagues included John Kenworthy who became chief engineer and designer at the Austin Motor Company in 1918 and who went on to found the Redwing Aircraft Co in 1930 ( Flight International) and

Henry Folland Henry Philip Folland OBE (22 January 1889 – 5 September 1954) was an English aviation engineer and aircraft designer. Early years Folland was born on 22 January 1889 to Frederick and Mary Folland at 2 King Street, Holy Trinity, Cambridge.1 ...

– later chief designer at Gloster Aircraft Company, and founder of his own company Folland Aircraft. One of the designers in the engine department was Samuel Heron, who later went on to invent the sodium-filled

poppet valve A poppet valve (also called mushroom valve) is a valve typically used to control the timing and quantity of gas or vapor flow into an engine. It consists of a hole or open-ended chamber, usually round or oval in cross-section, and a plug, usual ...

, instrumental in achieving greater power levels from piston engines. While at the RAF, Heron designed a radial engine that he was not able to build during his time there, however upon leaving the RAF he then went to Siddeley-Deasy where the design, the RAF.8, was developed as the Jaguar. Heron later moved to the United States where he worked on the design of the Wright Whirlwind. Other engineers included Major F.M. Green, G.S. Wilkinson, James E. "Jimmy" Ellor, Prof. A.H. Gibson, and A.A. Griffith. Both Ellor and Griffith would later go on to work for Rolls-Royce Limited. In 1918 the Royal Aircraft Factory was once more renamed, becoming the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) to avoid confusion with the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

, which was formed on 1 April 1918, and because it had relinquished its manufacturing role to concentrate on research. During WWII the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment, then based at Helensburgh in Scotland, was under the control of the RAE. In 1946 work began to convert RAF Thurleigh into RAE Bedford. Engineers at the Royal Aircraft Establishment invented high strength

carbon fibre Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (Commonwealth English The use of the English language in current and former member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations was largely inherited fro ...

in 1963. In 1961, the world's first grooved runway for reduced aquaplaning was constructed. In 1965, a US delegation visited to view the new surfacing practice and initiated a study by the FAA and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedi ...

. On 1 May 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). The Bedford site was largely shut down in 1994. 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 company QinetiQ.

Royal Aircraft Factory

Aircraft Factory designs

Between 1911 and 1918 the Royal Aircraft Factory produced 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 designation letters referred to the general layout of the aircraft, derived from a French manufacturer or designer famous for that type: * S.E. = Santos Experimental (

Canard Canard is French for duck, a type of aquatic bird. Canard may also refer to: Aviation *Canard (aeronautics), a small wing in front of an aircraft's main wing * Aviafiber Canard 2FL, a single seat recreational aircraft of canard design * Blé ...

or tail-first layout) * B.E. = Blériot 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: * A.E. = Armed or Armoured Experimental * C.E. = Coastal Experimental (e.g. Royal Aircraft Factory C.E.1 – prototype only) * F.E. = Fighting experimental (although they remained "Farmans" in the sense of being pushers) * N.E. = Night Experimental (e.g. Royal Aircraft Factory N.E.1 – prototype only) * R.E. =

Reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops ( skirmishe ...

experimental (two-seat machines) * S.E. =

Scout Scout may refer to: Youth movement * Scout (Scouting), a child, usually 10–18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement **Scouts (The Scout Association), section for 10-14 year olds in the United Kingdom ** Scouts BSA, sect ...

experimental fast single-seat aircraft. The B.S.1 of 1913 was a one-off anomaly, combining both systems: Blériot (tractor) Scout (fighter). R.T. & T.E. were also used for strictly one-off prototypes.

Designs produced

Several aircraft were produced during the days as the Army Balloon Factory. These include the

s as well as the Cody and Dunne designs. Subsequent Royal Aircraft Factory type designations are inconsistent and confusing. For instance the "

F.E.2 Between 1911 and 1914, the Royal Aircraft Factory used the F.E.2 (Farman Experimental 2) designation for three quite different aircraft that shared only a common "Farman" pusher biplane layout. The third "F.E.2" type was operated as a day and ...

" 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 almost a completely new aeroplane, with very little common with the earlier B.E.2 types apart from engine and fuselage. 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 The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 is a British biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. It was developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory by a team consisting of Henry Folland, John Kenworthy and Major Frank Goodden. It was one of the fast ...

was simply a late production S.E.5 with a more powerful engine. Several early RAF designs were officially "reconstructions" of existing 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. Royal Aircraft Factory BS1 003

* British Army Dirigible No 1 ''Nulli Secundus''—1907 *'' Nulli Secundus II''—1908 *

British Army airship Beta The Beta 1 was a non-rigid airship constructed for experimental purposes in the United Kingdom by the Army Balloon Factory in 1910. Reconstructed as Beta II, it was used successfully by the British Army and then by the Royal Naval Air Service ...

– 1910 * Dunne D.1 – 1907 * British Army Aeroplane No 1 (Cody) – 1908 *

Dunne D.3 John William Dunne (2 December 1875 – 24 August 1949) was a British soldier, aeronautical engineer and philosopher. As a young man he fought in the Second Boer War, before becoming a pioneering aeroplane designer in the early years of the 20th ...

* Dunne D.4 * Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.1—1911 * Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.1—1911 *

Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.1 The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 was a British single-engine tractor two-seat biplane designed and developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. Most of the roughly 3,500 built were constructed under contract by private companies, including establish ...

—1911 * Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2—1912 *

Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.3 The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.3 was a single-engined rotary engined biplane developed by the British Royal Aircraft Factory prior to the First World War. The B.E.4 and B.E.7 were virtually identical aircraft that differed only in the engine f ...

—1912 *

Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.4 The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.3 was a single-engined rotary engined biplane developed by the British Royal Aircraft Factory prior to the First World War. The B.E.4 and B.E.7 were virtually identical aircraft that differed only in the engine fit ...

—1912 * Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.3—1913 * Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.7—1913 * Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.2—1913 * Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.1—1913 * Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.2—1913 * Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.8—1913 * Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.3—1913 * Royal Aircraft Factory H.R.E.2—1913 *

Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2 Between 1911 and 1914, the Royal Aircraft Factory used the F.E.2 (Farman Experimental 2) designation for three quite different aircraft that shared only a common "Farman" pusher biplane layout. The third "F.E.2" type was operated as a day and n ...

—1914 * Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.2—1914 *

Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.5 The Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.5 was a British two-seat reconnaissance and artillery observation biplane designed and built by the Royal Aircraft Factory for the Royal Flying Corps. Development The R.E.5 was designed as a reconnaissance biplan ...

—1914 * Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.4—1914 * Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.6—1914 *

Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.7 __NOTOC__ The Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.7 was a British two-seat light bomber and reconnaissance biplane designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory and built under contracts by the Coventry Ordnance Works, Austin, Napier and Siddeley-Deasy for the ...

—1915 * Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.12—1915 *

Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9 The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9 was a British experimental reconnaissance aircraft of World War I. Design The intention of the designers was to combine the high performance of tractor configuration aircraft with a good field of fire for the o ...

—1915 * Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.8—1915 * Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.4a—1915 * SS class airship – 1915 * Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.4 – 1916 * Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.10 – 1916 *

– 1916 *

Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 The Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.8 was a British two-seat biplane reconnaissance and bomber aircraft of the First World War designed and produced at the Royal Aircraft Factory. It was also built under contract by Austin Motors, Daimler, Stan ...

– 1916 * Royal Aircraft Factory R.E.9 — 1916 *

Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 is a British biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. It was developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory by a team consisting of Henry Folland, John Kenworthy and Major Frank Goodden. It was one of the fast ...

—1916 *

a—1917 *

Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.9 The Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.9 was a prototype United Kingdom, British two-seat fighter-reconnaissance aircraft of the First World War. A single-engined pusher configuration, pusher biplane of 1917, the F.E.9 had poor performance and handling, ...

—1917 * Royal Aircraft Factory N.E.1—1917 * Royal Aircraft Factory A.E.3—1918 * Royal Aircraft Factory C.E.1—1918 * Royal Aircraft Factory Ram—1918

Engines

* RAF 1 * RAF 2 * RAF 3 * RAF 4 *

RAF 5 The RAF 4 was a British air-cooled, V12 engine developed for aircraft use during World War I. Based on the eight–cylinder RAF 1 it was designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory but produced by the two British companies of Daimler and Siddeley-Dea ...

* RAF 8

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.

Superintendents

The work of Samuel Franklin Cody in Airship, Kite and Aircraft Aeronautics 1903 - 1913 in England

The Superintendents of the

were James Templer (1878–1906) and John Capper (1906 – 1909). The following have served as Superintendents of the Royal Aircraft Factory / Establishment: * Mervyn O'Gorman (1912–1916) - Also Superintendent of the Balloon Factory from 1909 to 1912 *

Henry Fowler Henry Fowler may refer to: * Henry the Fowler (861–936), Duke of Saxony and King of the Germans * Henry Fowler (hymn writer) (1779–1838), English hymn writer * Henry Fowler (Maryland and Wisconsin) (1799–?), American farmer and politician * ...

(1916–1918) * Sidney Smith (1918-)

Changes

After the end of the First World War, the design and development of aircraft types ended – although work continued on general research and the development of missiles. Research included wind tunnel testing and other aeronautical research, areas which offered rare opportunities for women in STEM fields at this time with examples including Frances Bradfield who worked at the RAE for her entire career from 1919 to her retirement; Muriel Glauert (née Barker) joined in 1918 as a researcher working in aerodynamics; Johanna Weber, a German mathematician who joined the RAE after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

as part of Operation Surgeon to exploit German aeronautical researchers and technicians and bring them to the UK; and Beatrice Shilling who went on to invent Miss Shilling's orifice, to improve the engine performance of RAF Hurricane and Spitfire fighters during the Battle of Britain as part of wider work at the RAE on aircraft engine problems during

. In 1930 the RAE developed the Robot Air Pilot, an autopilot that used a gyro and flight controls that functioned by compressed air. Aircraft that were developed or tested at the RAE included the

Hawker Siddeley Harrier The Hawker Siddeley Harrier is a British military aircraft. It was the first of the Harrier series of aircraft and was developed in the 1960s as the first operational ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and ...

and

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France and t ...

Aircraft

* RAE Hurricane * RAE Scarab * RAE Zephyr

Missiles

* RAE Target—Surface-to-surface missile project from the early 1920s. * RAE Larynx—1927 unmanned pilotless aircraft, surface-to-surface anti-ship missile. * Malkara missile

Rockets

In the late fifties and through the sixties work proceeded at the RAE on several

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entire ...

projects – all of which were eventually abandoned M52 model

* R.A.E. – Vickers Transonic Research Rocket * Black Arrow * Black Prince * Black Knight * Jaguar * Skylark

Space satellites

* Orba X-2 – space satellite * Prospero X-3 – space satellite

Current use of the Farnborough site

The former RAE Farnborough site is (as of 2011) occupied by: * Farnborough Airport. * QinetiQ. * Housing, hotels, offices etc. The IQ FarnboroughFarnborough Business Park
/ref> development includes several refurbished former-RAE buildings. * The Farnborough Air Sciences Trust (FAST) museum, which has several former RAE aircraft and other exhibits. * Air Accidents Investigation Branch. The National Aerospace Library (NAL), located in the former Weapon Aerodynamics building (Q134 Building), has a collection of over 2,500 technical reports produced by the RAE."National Aerospace Library"
''RAeS'' Retrieved: 27 January 2011. 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 building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

s. 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 Nevil Shute's 1948 novel ''

No Highway No (and variant writings) may refer to one of these articles: English language * ''Yes'' and ''no'' (responses) * A determiner in noun phrases Alphanumeric symbols * No (kana), a letter/syllable in Japanese script * No symbol, displayed � ...

'' is an eccentric " boffin" at Farnborough who predicts metal fatigue in Britain's new airliner, the fictional "Rutland Reindeer". The

Comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma, and sometimes also a Comet ta ...

s failed for just this reason in 1954, although in the case of the Comet I the problem was in the metal structure around the squared windows, while the point of failure in the Reindeer aircraft was in the structure of the rear empennage/fuselage joints. A film version of the novel, '' No Highway in the Sky'', appeared in 1951, starring James Stewart as the protagonist. Stewart prepared for the role by shadowing Fred Jones OBE, a co-founder of the RAE Accident Section. Jones later was head of Structures Section (formerly Airworthiness Section) from 1957 to 1980.

References

External links

Risky Buildings: Farnborough wind tunnels
Royal Engineers and Aeronautics
RAE Ex-Apprentices Association
{{Authority control 1908 establishments in the United Kingdom Defunct aircraft manufacturers of the United Kingdom Defunct aircraft engine manufacturers of the United Kingdom Farnborough, Hampshire Grade I listed buildings in Hampshire Grade I listed industrial buildings History of Hampshire Military history of Hampshire Military research establishments of the United Kingdom Research institutes in Hampshire