Royal Aircraft Establishment

The Royal Aircraft Establishment ( RAE ) was a British research and development institution that was merged into new organizations established by the Department of Defense in 1991. From 1988 to 1991 the facility was called the Royal Aerospace Establishment .

history

Origin as a balloon factory

The company was founded in 1892 as an army-owned company for the production of balloons as "Her Majesty's Balloon Factory" (Royal Balloon Factory) located in Aldershot . In 1905 the company was relocated to Farnborough .

Developing aircraft as a Royal Aircraft Factory

From 1907 to 1909 a. A. the first constructions of the flying wing pioneer John William Dunne .

In December 1910, the company received the wreckage of a Blériot monoplane with a pulling propeller for investigation. The knowledge gained resulted in the first aircraft, the BE1, a single-seat biplane - but a pusher propeller was used. The machine took off on its maiden flight on December 4, 1911, but was not particularly successful: the BE1 crashed. In April 1911 , the company built a machine with a pull propeller ( Royal Aircraft Factory BE1 ) based on a Voisin double-decker in need of repair that had been purchased . In 1911 the company was renamed "Army Aircraft Factory".

After renaming it again to “Royal Aircraft Factory” from 1912, the team around the designer Henry Phillip Folland devoted itself increasingly to the construction of airplanes and developed models that became well known during the First World War .

The most successful product is likely to have been the British Royal Aircraft Factory SE5 fighter aircraft , which was used in large numbers by the Allies .

Conversion into a research facility

When the British Air Force was given the name Royal Air Force on April 1, 1918, and thus the abbreviation RAF, the company was renamed again to avoid confusion; it was now called "Royal Aircraft Establishment" (RAe). The change of name was accompanied by the state-ordered withdrawal from the area of aircraft development. From now on, the company was only active in research in the field of aircraft technology. Many well-known aircraft were tested in the RAe facilities in the post-war period , according to the British whiz kid Hawker Siddeley Harrier . For the later British-French joint project of the supersonic Concorde passenger aircraft , a feasibility study in Farnborough had already come to a positive result in 1955. The RAe operated, among other things, a large wind tunnel in Farnborough.

On April 1, 1991, the company was incorporated into the Defense Research Agency (DRA), an organization newly established by the British Ministry of Defense. On April 1, 1995, the DRA was combined with other organizations of the Ministry of Defense to form the Defense Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA).

In 2001, DERA was partially privatized - the state Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and the private company QinetiQ were created .

Both companies are now (2005) - next to the "British National Space Center" and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch , the British investigation center for accidents in aviation - in the facilities of the former RAe .

Aircraft produced

For the system of designations, see Designation System for Aircraft of the British Armed Forces

Individual evidence

↑ Robin Higham: Speed Bird: The Complete History of BOAC , publishing IBTauris, 2013, ISBN 978-0-85773-334-4 , page 351

[1] Robin Higham: Speed Bird: The Complete History of BOAC , publishing IBTauris, 2013, ISBN 978-0-85773-334-4 , page 351