# Centre for Human Sciences, Farnborough Dec '10/Jan '11



## mookster (Dec 8, 2011)

Photo and text heavy!

I've been sitting on this a long time now, but the site has changed irrepairably since my last visit with more demolition work, and total rape by pikeys and/or contractors out to weigh in all the metals so it's about time it saw the light of day.

The following text is taken from a 1998 site rationalisation study.

"The Centre for Human Sciences (CHS) was formed in 1995 from the Army Personnel Research Establishment (APRE), the Institute of Aviation Medicine (IAM), the Senior Psychologist from the Royal Navy and Scientists from the RAF. The constituent organisations originally came under the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) management but control was transferred to the CHS. It occupied approximately 10,000 square metres of accomodation in Farnborough previously occupied by the APRE and IAM. 

The role of the CHS was to provide advice to the MoD, and others, on those aspects of human science where human performance is critical. Customers for the CHS included MoD project offices, Chief Scientists in defence, the Inspectorate of Flight Safety, Service medical branches and commercial customers including the Civil Aviation Authority.

The Centre had siginificant facilities available to conduct measurements of human performance in stressing conditions. These included a hypobaric chamber as well as climate controlled, biomechanics, vibration, vision and sleep laboratories as well as an immersion pool all designed for experiments on the human body and it's capabilities."

When DERA split to form QinetiQ and the DSTL in 2000, the Centre closed along with Pyestock. Today, one building remains open on site which houses a fully operational human centrifuge, this was wide open last year but is now locked down and alarmed (as we were to find out on my first trip here) and about half of it has been demolished for a housing estate, the rest is currently following suit. I made 4 trips here over the end of last year/start of this year and enjoyed it a lot, the large amount of stripped offices/labs are more than made up for by some of the stuff which was left inside. Peculiarly for a site which closed a decade ago, some of it still looks as new and has working electricity, but parts of it show a decade of decline all too well. In the end we managed access to all but one of the main buildings, the only one that eluded us being an indoor test track.

These were all taken on my old bridge camera...and follow no real order just the order of the visits..













































































These are full body suits, boots and other clothing used in the climatic chambers





















Here you see the body suit in action:





























The enormous centrifugal fan which blasted air into the Cold Chamber













And the Hot Chamber





















Continued below...


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## mookster (Dec 8, 2011)

pt2...

























































































On the right is the only building we couldn't access

















































Thanks for looking


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## King Al (Dec 8, 2011)

This place looks fooking awesome! Superb mookster


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## mookster (Dec 8, 2011)

King Al said:


> This place looks fooking awesome! Superb mookster



It was a great place, and totally overlooked for years due to Pyestock being just down the road! That and the fact until the hoarding fences went up at the start of demolition it still looked entirely live.

We set off an alarm outside the centrifuge building on our first visit, we were walking down towards the building and neglected to notice the CCTV camera and alarm situated above it - the loudest wail I've ever heard quickly followed, and we retreated to a safe distance and hid for a bit to see if anyone turned up but nothing happened...later that explore we were on the other half of the site which straddles an access road to Farnborough Airport, and the guard in the cabin on the gate to the airport must have seen us waltz across the road because about 15 minutes later two actual, proper QinetiQ security officers turned up and found us - two of the nicest most pleasant guards I've ever met once they saw what we were doing - and they later told us the cameras on the centrifuge were monitored at QinetiQ HQ and it was their staff who'd set the alarm off!


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## TeeJF (Dec 9, 2011)

Nice one Mookster, another brilliant find and report!


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## losttom (Dec 10, 2011)

Excellent report and find


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## KingRat (Dec 10, 2011)

That's a great report on a cracking site. Ta for sharing


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## Munchh (Dec 11, 2011)

That's a right busy explore mate, fantastic! Thanks for sharing this.


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## Pincheck (Dec 12, 2011)

nice shots mate


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## Lusker (Dec 13, 2011)

Dam fine work mookie, Nice to see a place with so much left behind

Great post


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## automind (Mar 14, 2012)

I used to works at CHS a long time ago. Brought back a lot of memories!
Cheers
Automind


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## night crawler (Mar 14, 2012)

Nice work there Mookster.


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## ljarrald (Mar 14, 2012)

brilliant report!
looks like a really interesting building!


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## mookster (Mar 14, 2012)

automind said:


> I used to works at CHS a long time ago. Brought back a lot of memories!
> Cheers
> Automind



Nice!

The place has been almost totally flattened now, there is no trace left at all of the enormous hot/cold chamber building.


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## ljarrald (Mar 14, 2012)

mookster said:


> The place has been almost totally flattened now, there is no trace left at all of the enormous hot/cold chamber building.



such a shame.
looks like the building could of been reused to keep some of the stuff in there and provide office space/living space whatever. its a shame this country is so 'bulldozer happy' in destroying buildings and replacing them with standard, boring ones.


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## a_little_feisty (Mar 14, 2012)

Cracking report . . . love it!


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## gingrove (Mar 14, 2012)

Outstanding! Great report.


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## nelly (Mar 14, 2012)

Top stuff Mooks, that looks great mate, the sort of place you could spend a couple of days in!!!


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## chizyramone (Mar 14, 2012)

Cool report mookster, nice one


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## mookster (Mar 14, 2012)

I feel pretty lucky to have seen most of the place, as with MOD Aquila which I sadly never got to see nobody seemed really interested in this place as Pyestock was only a couple of miles down the road. This place laid undiscovered and off the radar for nearly a decade before my mate stumbled across it, it's proximity to Farnborough Airport and live QinetiQ Centrifuge building and Southern Gas offices in the middle of one half of the site must have put people off!


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## Flexible (Mar 14, 2012)

Top report mate. I could never have worked in a place like that.


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## smiler (Mar 14, 2012)

Got to be one of your best Mook, fantastic post I loved it, Thanks.


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## Mercury (Mar 14, 2012)

Amazing, i've never seen anything like it.


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## mookster (Mar 15, 2012)

smiler said:


> Got to be one of your best Mook, fantastic post I loved it, Thanks.



Cheers

Just a couple of things, the last photo of the first post - that's an access road into Farnborough Airport which ran right the way through the middle of the site. And the last photo of the second post, behind that fence is Farnborough Airport itself, told you it was close!


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## flyboys90 (Mar 15, 2012)

Top notch report & pics,really enjoyed that.


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## Ninja Kitten (Mar 15, 2012)

tidy mooch that one Ben...lovely report too


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## Stussy (Mar 16, 2012)

That looks like an awesome explore!! Nice report dude!


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## Sshhhh... (Mar 18, 2012)

This place looks fantastic! What an ace explore. Thanks for sharing and great pics too


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## Lucky Pants (Mar 18, 2012)

What a place and nice pictues .


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## meltdown (Mar 18, 2012)

Superb. I wanna go there...
Any idea what's in the only building you couldn't access ?
Thank you.


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## KingLewis92 (Mar 18, 2012)

Place Looks Epic! Nice Work


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## mookster (Mar 18, 2012)

meltdown said:


> Superb. I wanna go there...
> Any idea what's in the only building you couldn't access ?
> Thank you.



An indoor straight rail setup for testing among other things harnesses, belts etc etc the rig would have accelerated down the track and come to a sudden stop at the end.

It's too late to see the place now unfortunatley it's almost all demolished now.


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## IonaLaycock (May 25, 2012)

Loved this!


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## SeffyboyUK (May 26, 2012)

Nicely done that! Can understand the lack of interest with Pye just down the road, but I know I'd have had a look if I had known this place existed!


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## jongriff (May 26, 2012)

Great report guys loooks like a great explore


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## Potter (May 29, 2012)

Looked an interesting place. Shame it's gone.


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## begbi (Jun 1, 2012)

what a place absolutly massive


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## glass (Jun 3, 2012)

I get very jealous of some people


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