X-Nico

7 unusual facts about Royal Aircraft Establishment


Autopilot

In 1930, the Royal Aircraft Establishment in England developed an autopilot called a pilots' assister that used a pneumatically-spun gyroscope to move the flight controls.

Goodyear GZ-20

Christened Europa N2A. her structural elements were freighted from the Goodyear factory in Akron Ohio to the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Cardington, Bedfordshire, England on an Aero Spacelines Mini Guppy to be erected there but based at a new facility near Rome.

Metropolitan-Vickers F.2

In order to prove the design, Griffith and several other engineers at the Royal Aircraft Establishment built a testbed example of the compressor in 1928 known as Anne, the machinery being built for them by Fraser and Chalmers.

Montague Napier

Initially Napier & Son built engines designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory, but at his own expense Napier subsequently designed his own, the Lion.

R. J. Mitchell

Many of the technical advances in the Spitfire had been made by others: the thin elliptical wings were designed by the Canadian aerodynamicist, Beverley Shenstone, and shared some similarities with the Heinkel He 70 Blitz; the under-wing radiators had been designed by the RAE, while monocoque construction had been first developed in the United States.

Roy Henry Garstang

Because of the war, he spent 1945-46 as Scientific Officer at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, England and 1946-48 as Scientific Office at the Ministry of Works.

Władysław Świątecki

His slip device was the subject of debate at the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors from 1946 to 1955.(2) The Ministry claimed the device was invented at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough and developed by Vickers Armstrongs.


BAT Bantam

One aircraft was delivered to the Royal Aircraft Establishment on 26 July 1918, one was delivered to the French at Villacoublay and a further aircraft to the United States Army Air Corps at Wright Field in 1922.

BERP rotor

The initial BERP rotor blades were developed in the late 1970s to mid-1980s as a joint venture programme between Westland Helicopters and the Royal Aircraft Establishment, with Professor Martin Lowson as a co-patentee.

Cierva C.8

This was completed as the Type 611, test flown by Bert Hinkler at Hamble and then delivered to the Royal Aircraft Establishment by Cierva himself in Britain's first cross-country rotorcraft flight on 30 September that year.

Heinkel He 177

In early September 1944, the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was ordered to supply an aircrew for a He 177 that the French Maquis and Allied units in Vichy France would take control of at the airfield at Blagnac near Toulouse, where elements of both the He 177A-equipped KG 4 and KG 100 Luftwaffe bomber wings were based.

Norman Spratt

Norman Spratt, a native of Durban, Natal, was an officer of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War who was involved in much aircraft testing at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, United Kingdom.

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 by John Kenworthy at the Royal Aircraft Factory.

Saunders Helicogyre

The Helicogyre serial number K1171 was completed in 1929 and delivered to the Royal Aircraft Establishment by road.


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