National Gas Turbine Establishment
1941 Royal Aircraft Establishment expanded its gas turbine programme; the need for more test facilities was met by deciding to construct a purpose-built gas turbine research station at Pyestock. Power Jets Ltd also continued to expand at Whetstone, Leicestershire.
1944 Power Jets was nationalized and a new company, Power Jets (Research and Development) Ltd, was established, and the gas turbine division of the RAE was amalgamated with it. The Power Jets offices and workshops became part of the gas turbine research at the original Ladywood experimental site.
1946 The government felt the new company was not meeting its objectives. The company was brought into the civil service and named The National Gas Turbine Establishment.
1948 Plan formed to move the test facilities from Whetstone to Pyestock, on a 48 hectares site to the north of the existing Pyestock site on land previously used by the Bramshot Golf Course.
1955 Whetstone ceased to be part of the The National Gas Turbine Establishment when key staff, equipment and facilities completed the move to the new Pyestock site. (The Whetstone site continued as part of English Electric Co).
1972 Admiralty Engineering Laboratory was absorbed into NGTE
By 2000 greater use of computer simulations meant that large parts of Pyestock were redundant.
See Also
Sources of Information
- History of Pyestock [1]