# RAE Bedford – Bedfordshire - May 2015



## mockney reject (Nov 5, 2015)

_
The history_

In 1946 the site at Thurleigh the new base for the second Royal Aircraft Establishment site.
The site had several reasonably large wind tunnels, one supersonic and one large subsonic..
The supersonic tunnel was dismantled by 2005 and the building which held the fans and driving motors is now used as the set for the BBC popular science programme, "Bang Goes The Theory".
The RAE was deeply involved in the development of Concorde and was also a centre for the development of the Instrument Landing System.

_The Explore_

After having a few tip offs on how to get in myself and an exploring pal ventured up to Thurleigh. It was pretty apparent what building we where looking for when we got there so cheekily parked in the car park of the skydiving school and took a wander over the road to the wind tunnel building. 

Once inside we spent a bit of time mooching around, found the control room had a nose in there then I had to hit the crane, such an amazing view of the inside of the hanger from up there. Well worth climbing up if you plan to visit it

Enjoy the pics 


----------



## UrbanX (Nov 5, 2015)

Stunning report and photos. Ones like this don't come up very often! 
Thanks for sharing


----------



## mockney reject (Nov 5, 2015)

its a great place I can really recommend


----------



## smiler (Nov 5, 2015)

You made a sound job a that MR, I enjoyed it, Thanks


----------



## flyboys90 (Nov 5, 2015)

Great study of the site and nice to see it aint to badly knocked around.


----------



## Sam Haltin (Nov 5, 2015)

Now that's different. Good report and photos. Was the electric switched on?


----------



## mockney reject (Nov 6, 2015)

yeah it was then


----------



## yorkie_production (Jan 3, 2023)

mockney reject said:


> its a great place I can really recommend


Hi iv been looking for this site for photos could u plz help


----------



## yorkie_production (Jan 3, 2023)

mockney reject said:


> its a great place I can really recommend


Could u help me with a location please


----------



## BikinGlynn (Jan 4, 2023)

yorkie_production said:


> Could u help me with a location please



Hi Yorkie people generally dont just give out locations thats not really how exploring works.
if you google the rae bedford then look at the external pics its really quite easy to find


----------



## yorkie_production (Jan 4, 2023)

Yher i did try to find it the otherday to get some drone footage of the plce i found the control tower but not the air tunnel unfortunately


----------



## bonstio (Jan 5, 2023)

It's on a different site but it's not far away. There a re a couple of buildings but the larger of the two has been locked for some time now.


----------



## DanMoist (Jan 5, 2023)

bonstio said:


> It's on a different site but it's not far away. There a re a couple of buildings but the larger of the two has been locked for some time now.


I found them on Google maps. It took me a good while due to the angle of the photographs in this thread.


----------



## yorkie_production (Jan 6, 2023)

DanMoist said:


> I found them on Google maps. It took me a good while due to the angle of the photographs in this thread.


Anychans you could pm me with the location plz


----------



## Sam Haltin (Jan 7, 2023)

yorkie_production said:


> Anychans you could pm me with the location plz


Here's a map and the address of the location. But it is private.








RAE Bedford - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


----------

