3)  The Brookland's  Clubhouse

Department of Aeronautical Research and Development

After two years in the training school, my targeted path was to visit each department in the factory; lathes and mills in the main factory machine shop. This I was not looking forward to. 

Someone in the apprentice school thought that time in a specialist department would be better for me. That is to stay the remaining three years in the same department. I was to go to the Instrument workshop of the R & D department. The work there was to support the ideas of Dr Barnes Wallis, at the time this was mainly swing wing aircraft but also, special plastic mirrors, TSR-2 and BAC-111 exciter systems. 

I remember well going to see my new boss Peter Rogers. Grenville Scott, my instructor was with me. He had asked me to make the body of an air drill on one of the large lathes. About eight inches long by two inches diameter the work involved some intricate turning and boring plus I had to make an internal left hand thread ! 

The R & D workshop or Instrument shop was heaven, a small wooden building in front of the old Brooklands Pavilion. Clean with lino on the floor, each man had a purpose built work bench with two cupboards and two swing out quadrants to hold fine tools. So here I am, 18 years old, thinking how good I am, working on big lathes, in a workshop with small but expensive Swiss machines. Grenville tried to lift me by saying, "Terry has made a good job of the internal left hand thread". Peter rightly said an internal left hand thread is easier to make than a right hand. 

T206 Brooklands Clubhouse

Dr. Barnes Wallis HQ

From a page in the booklet "Test or be damned". Published by Vickers-Armstrongs(Aircraft) Ltd. C 1962

The facilities that have been described are backed up firstly by our own research organisation, whose activities are not tied to a particular aeroplane, and secondly by Vickers Research Ltd.

Swallow, the first variable geometry design, the “Dam Buster”, “Tall Boy and “Grand Slam (earthquake) bombs, and geodetic construction are but three of the inventions produced by Dr. B. N. Wallis and his team, who form our Department of Aeronautical Research and Development.

Their purpose is threefold:-

• 1. to act, when requested, as consultants in the field of design, development, and production;

  2. to devise and produce specialised testing equipment of a standard and quality that cannot be purchased (e.g., the Stratosphere Chamber and Supersonic Tunnel);

  3. and to invent novel ways for solving perennial and future problems in a practical and economic way.

At the time of writing they are developing apparatus for the BAC One-Eleven flight resonance programme. A cheap, easily made, ultra lightweight mirror, which does not mist up or shatter, is another invention which they have recently developed. Aeronautical Research and Development endeavours to be a completely versatile department that leaves nothing outside its province.

The work there was to support the ideas of Dr Barnes Wallis, in my time this was mainly swing wing aircraft but also TSR-2 and BAC-111 exciter systems.