Local heritage tour...

As part of our being on a site with oodles of heritage and local history; namely the ex-mod, military-type links; it is inevitable that some of that heritage has been retained and a taste of what has been still remains.

SEGRO kindly arranged tours of the heritage buildings on site (that's the wind tunnels) and so we got to have a look around some of the previous uses of the area.

The wind tunnels were mainly used for testing things that would be in an airflow, like an aeroplane, its wings, its engines etc. It was also used for slightly more unusual things, like testing umbrellas (!) and various other items. We had a very interesting tour from a gentleman name Ken, who worked in the wind tunnels for many many years.

Rather amusingly, we also had to wear steel toe cap boots, hard hats and high viz vests, which is probably why no-one else from Bluhalo would get in the shot with me, although I did manage to talk Karen from DS&S into being in the shot with me - thanks Karen! Anyway, photo is below, we are standing in front of the blades of the fan from the big wind tunnel!



That's me on the right (go on, you can laugh!)

And thanks to Robin, who went on the later tour, here are some better pictures!




The small wind tunnel



The big boy - 24ft of wind tunnel...

Those big fan blades again...

1500hp motor - the kind of thing that would have been tested in the big wind tunnel