Royal Aircraft Factory, H Dept

[aircraftclocks]

I notice on drawings of various instruments produced by the Royal Aircraft Factory, that H department created them.

Does anyone know what H department was responsible for?

[Flying Dutchman]

Excellent question,

Nobody seems to know, neither do I, sorry.

Perhaps you can shed some light on it, you got the drawings !?




FD

[Bletchley]

Bit of a long-shot, maybe, but possibly Hydroplane?

Royal Aircraft Factory H.R.E.2 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bletchley

[John McKenzie]

Hello Bob . ......I do not have the answer , however it may be that Paul Hare , who has specialised in R.A.Factory history , and who is a member , having posted here on a few occasions ,. may chip in if he knows the answer ........ If not , a PM might be an idea .

FWIW , ....Personally , I don't recall having seen any such Dept. letter or number on any of the hundreds of RAF construction drawings that I have or have seen , so I would tend to agree with you on the lines that "Dept H" is probably a separate " Instrument , Drawing Office and Prototype / Test Building " ? and that this building has been designated as " Dept H " ....This might simply be to differentiate this area of expertise from the General drawing office dept , also for ease of Drg. tracability .

I do not believe that it would have had anything to do with aircraft type designation such as BE , SE , RE etc......These machines were quite likely being drawn up at the same time , side by side , in the same drawing office ....Drawing numbers being issued , and entered in the log book , on a next come basis , rather than a batch being assigned to a particular machine type .
Regards John M

[YavorD]

R.A.F. operation, 1916 [Source: Report of the Committee on Royal Aircraft Factory, Appendix B].



Another R.A.F H Department document (T.760 Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, July 1916, DSIR 23/774, National Archives, Kew).

Regards,
Yavor

[John McKenzie]

Thanks YavorD for the charts ..

So it would appear that Dept. H comes under the control of the Assistant Engineer - Physics " ...and covers various sciences ....Instrument , Sub Drawing Office ,Workshop & Instrument Tests , ( as I had surmised ) , But additionally :-Wireless , Aerodynamics , Chemists , Fabric research & Tests and Photography .

John M

[rc.gardner]

Bob,

Were the CD's you told us about several years ago ever produced?

With kind regards,

Bob

[YavorD]

Originally Posted by John McKenzie

... So it would appear that Dept. H comes under the control of the Assistant Engineer - Physics " ...and covers various sciences ....Instrument , Sub Drawing Office ,Workshop & Instrument Tests , ( as I had surmised ) , But additionally :-Wireless , Aerodynamics , Chemists , Fabric research & Tests and Photography .

John M

... or Engineer in charge of Designs / Assistant Engineer Designs / Designs Drawing Office / Checking and Tracing;
... or Engineer in charge of Designs / Assistant Engineer Designs / Calculations.

The report mentioned above does not provide internal designations.

Regards,
Yavor

[John McKenzie]

YavorD......Sorry ,..But if you look at your own posting of Appendix B , you will see from the " Tree " that the only person in charge of both " Aerodynamics " AND " Instruments " , is The Assistant Engineer - Physics .
Both of the posted documents here are shown to have come from Dept H .
The First being the initial post by Aircraftclocks ref. to Instruments and the
The Second , being your own FE8 wind tunnel model data document 605Z , which can fairly be assumed to have come under Aerodynamics ....both marked Dept H ......The Assistant Engineer - Physics , is directly under the Assistant and then Superintendent RAF .

Note from your own Appendix B ....The "Engineer in charge of designs" , plainly does NOT have under his control the Wireless , Aerodynamics , Instruments etc....This is solely the responsibility of the " Assistant Engineer - Physics " and therefore this persons dept is known as Dept H ..........QED !.

[Bletchley]

Bob,

Yes, they were: still available, I think, at the original £25

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