Report - RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine (The Human Centrifuge), Farnborough - February 2010

[Oxygen Thief]

Thanks to Nickg for the initial exploring, and the useful info.

Explored with Urban Junkie, Petzl and Diehardlove. First stop the Centrifuge, which was built in 1955...

The man-carrying centrifuge recreates the G-forces experienced by fighter jet pilots during flight. During the past fifty years, the facility has played a crucial role in developing a greater understanding of the effects of high G-forces on the human body, and countermeasures to protect against them. All of the anti-G systems currently used by RAF fast-jet aircrew have been developed and tested at the Farnborough Centrifuge.

Youtube video of it in action...

I'm fairly certain this is a live site. It's exceptionally clean, the heating and lighting is on, and most of the doors are locked.

Inside the gondolas...

Another shot, sorry...

This is where the gondola 'crew' would have sat...

Gondola, control room and door...

I quite liked the lighting on this one, just the other guys walking around with torches...

We looked in as many rooms as we could, then moved on to the environmental chambers. There's a lot of plant here, and a disused control room separates the hot and cold chambers.

The hot side...

The cold side...

That's a large treadmill in each chamber, operated from the control room.

Finally, there's the Resuscitation Rooms adjacent to these...

A great explore, thanks.

 

[molly wicks]

is this place still there?xx

 

[Speed]

Yep. The centrifuge is anyway

 

[molly wicks]

awesome gunna have to go there then !

 

[The Amateur Wanderer]

Definitely worth a bit of looking into, I wondered what might be left here whilst doing the Bedford site...

Hmmmm

Edit - Quick search seems to show most of it's now gone for housing... Shame!

 

[Speed]

Its preserved like all the other Farnborough stuff. The Centrifuge was never disused. They just left the door unlocked for a couple of days.

 

[Els]

Definitely worth a bit of looking into, I wondered what might be left here whilst doing the Bedford site...

Sometimes the Farnborough wind tunnel area is opened for a tour. I think it was last used as some kind of exhibition space. Well worth a look in if you ever get the chance, it's all still in perfect condition from what I've seen.

 

[tirpitz]

yes the 24 foot wooden wind tunnel is in excellent shape.
i got in there just before the art exhibition 2 years ago

DS8_1518

 

[Hmp-Caver]

I'd have loved to have had a go on one of them! the speeds and G's are immense from what I've heard!

 

[anubis]

For some reason I always expect these things to be decorated with vom inside :

 

[mookster]

Ironically this was the only part of the entire site I never got into. It had some seriously loud alarms placed on the outside of it after this lol.

Considering it's size, proximity to and connection with Pyestock just down the road it was amazing nobody really bothered with the place other than myself and Flub and a few others.

It was actually known as the Centre for Human Sciences which was created out of the merging of the Institute of Aviation Medicine and a few other organisations and was run by the old Defence Evaluation and Research Agency prior to their split. There is precious little info online about it as a lot of the work they did was kept pretty secret, however on one of my visits I found a complete site survey document which detailed what every single building contained and its function within the site.

 

[Bugsuperstar]

I found this bbc article from 2015 quite interesting. There’s a shot of the old control panel in it too.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150929-the-ride-that-makes-astronauts-sick

 

[mookster]

I did post a set of photos from my many visits here years back, but as this seems to have been bumped up again I hope @Oxygen Thief doesn't mind me chucking a few of them in here.

The site was huge, and whilst a lot of it was empty office type rooms there was a smattering of amazing stuff left behind including a mock up fighter plane cockpit test rig and a decompression chamber plus the hot chamber and the enormous cold chamber, as well as a whole room full of clothing and personal equipment. There was another equally large set of hot and cold chambers but by the time Flubs first got into the place with someone whose name I can't remember for the life of me, they were already ripped out and only the shell of the building was left.

I liked the reference to Pyestock on the whiteboard!

 

[TheTimeChamber]

Gutted I missed this tbh

 

[whatsinaname]

I have been here on several occasions whilst wearing the establishments blue suit.
I don't think it's really changed over the years, the only thing that's changed is it's now a logo'd civilian outfit.
The centrifuge and smaller versions aka the vomit comet were used to desensatise aircrew that suffered air sickness by initially making them sick!!!
Great photos as I remember it really.