Post by Admin on Sept 9, 2020 13:01:35 GMT
Last night saw the latest virtual meeting using Zoom to a lecture entitled "The Royal Aircraft Factory in World War I" by Graham Rood.
This meeting had 32 participants, including at least one guest from the AEG (Aircraft Enthusiasts Group) - hopefully they found the format works well, and may encourage them!
Graham's talk was a shortened version of a longer lecture, where he detailed the Royal Aircraft Factory Farnborough's development from the early 1900s through to the end of the First World War.
Enhanced by period photography, (which was commented on my some members, of the high detail provided by early 20th Century equipment) we saw the growth of the site from a couple of balloon sheds in the early Edwardian era through to the multiplicity of buildings created for its many functions by 1919.
Some members may have been reminded of the similarities of the period's wind tunnels to those seen at Farnborough on the Society's visit there in July 2018.
With intriguing images of some of the obscure ideas, to the, for the time, advanced concepts that bore fruit later on, we were shown how the population of the site grew to 5,000 at the end of the Great War. Also relevant were the fact that around 60% of the 5,000 were female, and not all doing the 'lesser' tasks. This information, with some indication of the site's personnel structure and, in some cases, with familiar names involved in the various aspects, revealed the complexity of activity on this small area of Laffan's Plain during this period.
Together with some of the technical information in the form of the resulting research's graphs from the occupants, Graham also demonstrated how the costs of the 'production' side of the organisation varied between different projects and compared them to the prices charged by some more commercial projects of the day.
All in all, a good insight into not only how Farnborough grew from balloons on a public plain, to a technical facility inaccessible to most for obvious reasons, which was possibly far in advance of any of its kind in the world at that time.
This meeting had 32 participants, including at least one guest from the AEG (Aircraft Enthusiasts Group) - hopefully they found the format works well, and may encourage them!
Graham's talk was a shortened version of a longer lecture, where he detailed the Royal Aircraft Factory Farnborough's development from the early 1900s through to the end of the First World War.
Enhanced by period photography, (which was commented on my some members, of the high detail provided by early 20th Century equipment) we saw the growth of the site from a couple of balloon sheds in the early Edwardian era through to the multiplicity of buildings created for its many functions by 1919.
Some members may have been reminded of the similarities of the period's wind tunnels to those seen at Farnborough on the Society's visit there in July 2018.
With intriguing images of some of the obscure ideas, to the, for the time, advanced concepts that bore fruit later on, we were shown how the population of the site grew to 5,000 at the end of the Great War. Also relevant were the fact that around 60% of the 5,000 were female, and not all doing the 'lesser' tasks. This information, with some indication of the site's personnel structure and, in some cases, with familiar names involved in the various aspects, revealed the complexity of activity on this small area of Laffan's Plain during this period.
Together with some of the technical information in the form of the resulting research's graphs from the occupants, Graham also demonstrated how the costs of the 'production' side of the organisation varied between different projects and compared them to the prices charged by some more commercial projects of the day.
All in all, a good insight into not only how Farnborough grew from balloons on a public plain, to a technical facility inaccessible to most for obvious reasons, which was possibly far in advance of any of its kind in the world at that time.