Farnborough History
Just happened to be at Farnborough during the year of its 50th anniversary.
A booklet produced for the occasion summarises the history and is well worth repeating here.
The Farnborough Story
Few of the millions for whom Farnborough now means something will know that the telegraphic address of the R.A.E. is "Ballooning, Farnborough". This amusing vestige is a key to its history. The family tree of British official aviation shows that Farnborough was conceived when the War Office opened a Balloon Fquipment Store at Woolwich in 1878; it was born in 1905 when their balloons were first parked on Farnborough Common. In the next decade the pioneers of heavier-than-air flight began to mingle with the balloonists the first aeroplanes began to stagger into the air ; and it was then that the War Office realised rather tardily that there might be a future for these odd and unpredictable contraptions. The nekt significant date is 1909, when the family tree divides. One branch begins with the Balloon Section, R.F., soon to become the Farnborough Air Battalion and later the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force; it soon left
home. The other branch, growing up through H.M. Balloon Factory, the Army Aircraft Factory, the Royal Aircraft Factory and the Royal Aircraft Establishment, has always stayed at home.
The next keynote in Farnborough's history is the word "Factory". In those early days, before World War I, to design, build and fly an aeroplane was certainly a dangerous adventure ; it was perhaps an art ; it was not yet a science. But when the war came, and with it the stunning fact that war itself could grow wings, the pioneers had to be very quickly organised and expanded.
The brave and brilliant group of Farnborough men who got the BF2C and its successors into the air and coaxed them to stay there were aeroplane fanciers ; it was natural and right that Farnborough should build what they fancied. But they had to reckon with the aeroplane industry, a turbulent infant howling for its sustenance, and they lost their battle. In 1916 it was decided that the men of Farnborough would have quite enough to do in amassing knowledge on how aeroplanes should be designed and flown; others would in future build them. If the men who made this at-the-time debatable decision could have had a preview of the next forty years they would have been much fortified.
The Course is Set
The course of Farnborough was thenceforward set under successive Government Departments : Air Ministry, Ministry of Aircraft Production, Ministry of Supply. It was to be Research and Development. The sharp outline of this time-honoured phrase has been almost rubbed away by official usage. How does it fall out at Farnborough? It is simplest, perhaps, to watch a scientist or a technician at work there. He is seen to be kept, if not on the run, then in a state of healthy motion, by the presence of three persistent clients who will not leave him alone. One is always jogging his studious elbow: "Hurry ; we want to get that to work". Another is always eager for prescient conversation: "Open your lips and your files ; we badly need your advice". And the third, with his eyes permanently fixed on the horizon, vibrates with a vast impatience : "That will be old stuff soon. Now here is a real problem for you". In consequence, no one who has worked at Farnborough is able to place it in any of the usual institutional categories. It has for him an undefinable but familiar shape, a peculiar but unmistakable dynamic. A rum place, he might say, but a very stimulating one ; he would not really have it otherwise.
When the Balloon Factory moved from Aldershot to Farnborough fifty years ago much pioneering work had already been done; Col. Templer (Superintendent 1878-1906), Col. Capper (Superintendent 1906-9), J. W. Dunne and S. F. Cody in particular were ready to give Farnborough a good start. The balloon and man-lifting kite work was continued and a beginning was made on airships, motor-driven kites and aeroplanes. An appropriate starting-point of Farnborough's experimental equipment was the erection of a 5 ft. by 5 ft. wind tunnel. In 1907 British Military Airship No.1 (Nulli Secundus) made a record flight of 31/2 hours. This was the first of a line, all of which made valuable contributions to development and operational experience. At the same time (and in at least one case using the same engine for both types of craft) the work on aeroplanes was gaining momentum under Cody and Dunne. A year later Cody's Biplane No.1 made the first official British flight 496 yards at a height of 50-60 feet. Dunne's work suffered from the bane of early aircraft designers-lack of a suitable engine.
In spite of the clear success of Cody and the less exciting but valuable contribution of Dunne, the War Office considered that work on aeroplanes was too expensive and Cody and Dunne were "released" from the Factory early in 1909. Compensation came later, however, with the decision to separate the Balloon Factory from the Balloon School. Colonel Capper took over command of the School and Mervyn O'Gorman was appointed Superintendent of the Factory. The coming of O'Gorman inaugurated the use of scientific methods in aeronautical development. The Factory, working closely with the newly formed Advisory Committee for Aeronautics and the National Physical Laboratory, soon became the chief centre of experimental aviation with full-scale craft. O'Gorman's appointment was immediately followed by the arrival of F. M. Green from the Daimler Co., on the recommendation of that great pioneer of aerodynamics, Dr. F. W. Lanchester. As "Engineer in Charge of Design" Green was responsible not only for the final types in the airship series, most of the aircraft in the famous "Factory series" and all the early Factory engines, but also for the pioneer work on stressing, testing, airworthiness and inspection. In addition he obtained for the Factory the D.H.2, complete with its designer, Geoffrey de Havilland. With such a team Farnborough was well placed to start a profitable period of research, development, design and manufacture that was to come to fruition in the war.
To be continued.