The story of RAE Farnborough begins before the Royal Air Force existed, on a stretch of open ground at Farnborough Common that the Army wanted for balloons and airships. In 1904–06 the Army Balloon Factory moved from Aldershot to Farnborough so it could build larger “dirigible” sheds and generate its own hydrogen on site. That early work quickly widened into kites and heavier-than-air experiments, and in October 1908 Samuel Franklin Cody made what is generally credited as the first powered aeroplane flight in the United Kingdom from Farnborough.
In 1909 the War Office brought the operation under civilian direction and appointed Mervyn O’Gorman as superintendent. Under him, Farnborough became something rarer than a workshop. It became a place where aviation was treated as an engineering discipline, with formal stress calculations, structural testing, instrumentation and methodical flight trials rather than inspired tinkering. By 1912 the site was the Royal Aircraft Factory, designing and building aeroplanes, engines and systems at speed for a war that was about to demand all three.
The name “Royal Aircraft Establishment” arrived in 1918 for an almost comic reason: the initials RAF now belonged to the newly formed Royal Air Force, so the “Factory” became the “Establishment”. The change also reflected a shift in emphasis. In broad terms, Farnborough’s job became research, test and advice, supporting industry and the services rather than competing with manufacturers in production. Through the inter-war years the RAE built up laboratories and specialist buildings, many of which still underpin Farnborough’s historic character. One of the most important survivals is the G1 building (often referred to as Trenchard House), built in 1911 and recognised today for its national significance in Britain’s early military aviation story.
By the Second World War, RAE Farnborough had matured into a wide-ranging scientific organisation. It worked across aerodynamics, structures, engines, armament, materials, flight testing and human factors, as well as the fast-growing world of radio, radar and navigation. It was not the only research centre in Britain, but it was the best-known and, in many areas, the place where ideas were turned into measurable performance and safe operating limits. The RAE also spawned and fed outstations, notably RAE Bedford from the mid-1940s, to give the country more airspace and specialist facilities for experimental work.
The post-war decades kept Farnborough busy. Britain’s new jet aircraft, guided weapons and electronic systems all demanded test ranges, wind tunnels, instrumentation and careful analysis. In parallel, Farnborough became entwined with the public face of British aviation through the Farnborough Airshow, which grew out of the same culture of demonstration and measured progress. The Establishment’s remit broadened again in the later Cold War, and in 1988 it adopted the name “Royal Aerospace Establishment” to reflect work that reached beyond traditional aircraft. In 1991 the RAE ceased to exist as a standalone body, folded into new Ministry of Defence research structures as government reorganised defence science.
If you walk the site in your mind’s eye, one feature ties the flying side of this story together: its control tower. Farnborough’s flying control tower was more than a perch for binoculars. It sat at the hinge between experiment and discipline, coordinating a steady churn of test sorties, visiting aircraft and, in airshow weeks, the dense choreography of display flying. The tower also reflected the RAE’s habit of treating airfield operations as another engineering problem to be improved, adopting new communications and control methods as they emerged. For generations of pilots, engineers and controllers, it was the visible nerve centre of a place that spent most of its life asking the same question: what happens if we try it, measure it properly, and then do it better?