My father W.F.Lewis worked here 1962-1981 testing TSR2 & Concorde.I am delighted to see your photos & I'm sure he will be too. Shame it couldn't have been preserved as an industrial heritage site/museum. A good site for info & pictures http://www.ngte.co.uk/

said laurals11 2007.11.15 at 17:36:45 PST

It has been an honour to have had your expertise and guidance left here..one year ago I had never heard of this place,so I rely on things like the comments and my prize posession my NGTE manual complete with drawings,pics and description of what went on in Pyestock.I have a book by Ian Mackenzie too but that is a bit heavy for me.I consider myself a mature Urbexer at almost 50!I do this archive stuff for our future viewers who wont be able to visit gems like Pyestock.all the best CaptainJarv from Stu.

said klempner69 2007.10.21 at 10:18:56 PDT

Well said! In layman’s terms we simulated altitude to measure things you can’t do at sea level for example a ‘Jet Engine’ develops a lot less thrust at high altitudes because the air its using to push itself forward on, is thinner. (A bit like rowing a boat with your oars out of the water) Fortunately there is also less resistance so you still fly as fast. Most aircraft fly at 38000 feet, as this is the optimum. We also used to measure specific fuel consumption and set the surge control. You can do this measurement on a wing on an aircraft but the results are not as accurate or repeatable. There should be loads of literature about on the Internet for this stuff as methodology of testing was all unclassified Thanks for letting me see the place again, your shots are great I wish it could be done offically by Historians as well as UE's like you

said CaptainJarv 2007.10.21 at 09:00:53 PDT

The engine test facilities at the National Gas Turbine Establishment Pyestock were constructed to allow the testing of gas turbine and ramjet engines to be performed on the ground under controlled conditions simulating flifgt altitude and aircraft forward speed.The provision of the facilities provides an alternative way of proving partially develped engines without recourse to flight testing which is frequentley limited in scope and exposes newly designed and most valuable equipment to a variety of risks..(quoted from official NGTE manual 1981).

said klempner69 2007.10.21 at 01:15:02 PDT