Royal Aircraft Establishment Bedford: UK April 2015

RAE Bedford, AKA Twinwoods was a wind tunnel site in Bedfordshire.

Comprising of a number of buildings some of which have now been repurposed.

Opened in the 1950's the site contained some serious hardware. A power station comprising two 25mw generating sets powered an 80,000hp motor to create wind speeds of up to 1700mph. Two 14,000hp motors were needed just to aid in starting the monster engine. When it was running it could be clearly heard for miles. I believe there were at least three wind tunnels here of varying diameters. All this was run by various control rooms. There was even one just to control the oil supply around the site.

Sadly a lot of the equipment here has been removed, two wind tunnels remain, one is now used by Red Bull Racing the other, a vertical wind tunnel is now used for indoor skydiving.

The first building we visit is the 8ft x 8ft wind tunnel. The first control shown I believe is for the oil supply around the site, the second is for the generating set. Then you see the where the large fan was situated, the tunnel leads out of one of the large blue circles and returned through the other. To conserve power the tunnel was designed to re-use the airflow.

Then I take you into another building on the site. This is the 3ft x 3ft supersonic wind tunnel. This was not as well preserved but I found it overall a more interesting explore and a lot more photographic. First room shown is another control room, not fully sure on its purpose but it was named the observation room. Then we find corridors and stairs with peeling paint, a number of workshops, a small substation like room and a large flooded area, I believe the wind tunnel was kept internally and the flooded area is where it travelled under the building.

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