Highlights from the Collection
Coming soon... work will re-start on this section
We will be expanding this into a series of articles describing some interesting items from the FAST collection. We will go into what the object is, its history and sometimes something about the curatorial skills involved in restoring and conserving it.
Landing light display
Ever wondered where aircraft keep their "headlights"? There is a display that lets you see a landing light up close.Museum Manager "finds" something in the stores and the volunteers turn it into a display
Museum Manager, Brian Luff was delving into the collection store at the museum and he came up with an aircraft landing light. John Hardy repaired it and provided a purpose-built 28 volt power supply to power it.
The next stage was to exhibit it.
Les Coleman offered to make a wing section to be attached to the wall above the landing gear display. Les made the wing section in his workshop at home - it is 6ft long 4 ft wide and 2 ft deep (1.8mx1.2mx.6m) transported it to the museum ready for the next step.
It was quite a challenge to lift the wing section and fix to the wall without a crane. So Les, with the help of Dave Ford, Malcombe Borrow, Maurice Shakespeare and Graham Rood specially built a very light weight lifting block and tackle. Securely to the wall, it was wired up and tested.
After a coat of paint it is now a fully functioning display. The pictures below show some of the steps in getting there.
Craig Hicks picks the Whittle Jet Engine as his favourite object in the FAST collection
Volunteer Craig Hicks has chosen the Whittle jet engine as his favourite piece. He says "The reason for this is Sir Frank Whittle's jet engine transformed air travel and the whole of the aviation industry. It has allowed millions of people now to do something that was barely thinkable just 70 years ago. It also has very strong links with Farnborough, the R.A.E and Pyestock."
This engine was part of the collection transferred from QinetiQ to FAST and used to be in the entrance hall of the main Pyestock building. We don't think this engine was ever flown but it was certainly of the period and had been assembled by the Whittle engineers.
In addition, we have in the museum the "augmentor" [later called after burning] unit that was to be fitted behind the W2/700 and installed in the cancelled Miles M52 aircraft. This combination was likely to have been able to exceed the speed of sound [Mach 1] before the American Bell rocket powered aircraft.
FAST Flying Clothing Collection
Article contributed by Dr Graham Rood
The FAST Collection of Flying Clothing, described officially as Aircrew Equipment Assemblies (AEA), has more than 250 items of protective assemblies for aircrew. These include a full range of aircrew coveralls, partial & full pressure suits, ‘Mae Wests’, ‘g’ suits, flying helmets, PECs boots, gloves etc – right from the early days through to the present.
Throughout the major development phases of flying clothing, Farnborough has been at the forefront of research and development into this topic. The work was covered by a combination of the Human Engineering science and engineering research and development by RAE Mechanical Engineering and Human Engineering Departments and by the medical and physiological development and lab and flight-testing of the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine (IAM).
The collection has virtually the full range of production prototype Full Pressure Suits that were being developed in the mid 1950’s and an excellent RAE Type B Full Pressure Suit, along with other RAE prototypes, that were being developed for high-altitude flight in the V-bombers and were to be tested in the Victor B2 at A&AEE Boscombe Down. After the cessation of the Full Pressure Suit research, the later developments of partial pressure garments combined with anti-g suits and air ventilated cooling are kept in the collection, and this type of AEA was common in Lightning squadrons.
The range of flying helmets includes all of the types from the Mk1 and ‘G’ helmet inner through to the current Mk 4, as well as the range of Taylor Pressure Helmets (again used in Lightning operations) and a number of experimental helmets
Recently, QinetiQ donated the prototype space models of the Mk4 helmet mounted sight, used operationally in Jaguar and a prototype of the helmet mounted display being developed for Eurofighter/Typhoon. RAE carried out an extensive research & development programme on both of these helmet mounted devices, including many flight trials in the RAE Jaguars and Tornado.
At this point close to 200 items of aircrew equipment assemblies have been catalogued and there are many more to go.
2nd March 2006
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Version: 1.15 date: 15 July 2010