Heritage Lost
 

The ETPS buildings at Farnborough are now being demolished, ETPS hangar (F Shed) has lost its roof and the office block is starting to disappear.
H Shed, which housed the E28/39, has completely gone now.
The Officer's Mess is of course long gone and replaced by a hotel, opening in May, and a new road has been built (not yet open) between this hotel and the airport perimeter fence.

Tis very sad, but at least Farnborough still survives as an active airfield, which is more than RAE Bedford does. :{

Sad news Chevvron. We are becoming a nation of Henry Fords. How long before some fluffy or PC "champion" objects to the E in ETPS?

GBZ,

There are those that have no concept of heritage / brand that exist and are trying to change things. Fortunately, there are also those with enough sense not to.

sw

ETPS
 

Well there's no Empire anymore so maybe it's time for a rename....

The Wiltshire Aircraft Test School ?

Heritage seems to be a thing of the past these days.

As an aside, after ETPS moved out, those buildings became SETC - the (RAE) Student Engineers Training Centre; it gave I and quite a few others a great start to our working lives in aeronautics - but after SETC was shut down in the early 1990s (apparently MoD / DRA/ DERA / Qinetiq decided that the year of intensive engineering training we got there was no longer a useful and necessary add-on to a university degree. Frankly I think that they were wrong!) those buildings had been looking incredibly sorry for themselves, so it was probably inevitable.

However, at least the "Farnborough" quality brand still has a strong present and future and I'm sure will long outlast Qinetiq/TAG just as it already has HMBF, RAF, Min.Av, Min.tech, RAE....


As for ETPS, please not QTPS!, but if we ever have to admit that the Empire is gone, maybe RTPS wouldn't be too bad? I'm pretty sure that we're still a monarchy at least.

G

Donning my other hat, I occasionally took my ATC cadets on visits to 'RAE'. One visit included a look in 'A' Shed where the apprentices were experiencing work on real aeroplanes. The tutor kindly detailed a couple of 2nd year apprentices to explain to the cadets what they were doing. I have to say I was impressed, not only did they know what they were doing but they were able to explain it to the cadets (age range 13 - 18) in such a way that the cadets could understand. Having been to the RAF equivalent at Halton, I have to say it was unlikely the RAF apprentices would have been able to do this.
But DERA/QinetiQ felt this is not necessary anymore; who are we to argue?

What year did you visit A shed? If it was 1979 it might have been ME! There wasn't many of us and I did show a few space cadets around in my time!! Once we eaven had a Dutch ATC group visit us. They wouldn't have got passed the security now.
It is a shame that the good old apprenticship schemes have all but died out. I still remember and use some of the old tricks that my apprentice masters (Reg Weeding and Doug Beckford ) taught me.

Rgds Dr I

Probably was '79. The 'green' Hunter was on a trailer in two pieces having had its prang a few weeks earlier.
Yes the RAE Apprenticeship scheme was second to none in my opinion. As you will know, it 'spawned' Farnborough College of Technology, who are now vociferous complainers about flying at Farnborough; there's gratitude for you.

So it might have been me!!!!
I was in A shed at that time as I helped sweep that Hunter ( XE531, the only Mk 12) of the runway. Tis a small world Aviation.

Rgds Dr I

I was the controller who convinced the TP from Brough who flew with Rod Sears on that day that there would be no Cb activity so it would be a good day to fly (for the uninitiated '531 had an experimental FBW setup which was not cleared for thundery weather conditions).
I went off duty just as they taxiied out at about 2pm and didn't know what had happened until I saw the TV news that evening.

LATCC
 

Was at LATCC West Drayton on tuesday, very sad seeing all the kit being skipped.:{ still, when one door closes another one opens

Bedford/Thurleigh
The closing of this airfield was a national disaster--it was the ideal R&D airfield site throughout Europe (long flat runway,low air traffic area and low population, plenty of instrumentation--could also deal with airline flight training).
So now we have the French and Dutch doing it all. Thurleigh is now jammed with unsold cars(Google map):sad:

It's a little known 'fact' (and kept very quiet) that RAE Bedford had an overland supersonic corridor approved along the 'Bedford Levels' almost until the day it closed. I think it was established initially for the BAC 221, but it was never dis-established, so other Bedford trials aircraft used it after the '221 project finished.

Need a new professor?---my job sucks:}:}:}

PA

Y9 (Safety Equipment Store) has now gone and L Shed is fast disappearing to make way for a new hangar (that's hangar not shed)