The Bristol branch owns the heritage of the Bristol Engine Company, its predecessors Brazil Straker and Cosmos Engineering, later the Bristol Siddeley company and, ultimately, the heritage of the site during the Rolls-Royce era. Its display reflects the leadership given to the development of the air-cooled radial piston engine by Sir Roy Fedden, to the development of the gas turbine engine for V/STOL and supersonic flight – including Concorde, by Sir Stanley Hooker and more recently the development of the Pegasus and the RB199 by Gordon Lewis.

In addition, with the disposal of the Leavesden site in North London and the move of its project workload to Bristol, the Bristol branch now incorporates the Leavesden collection.

The Leavesden collection centred on the de Havilland Engine Company’s products and achievements, to a lesser extent on those of Blackburn. De Havilland, like Blackburn had made small piston engines for light aircraft between the wars, but had made great progress in the early days of the gas turbine, ultimately specialising in helicopter engines.

The Bristol branch now houses both these important collections in a new location on the Bristol test site.

Publication
‘Sleeve Notes’, the Bristol branch house magazine is published and circulated to all branch members, giving news articles and updates on branch activities.

Historical Collection and Exhibits
The Bristol collection and workshops are housed on the Gypsy Patch test area of the Bristol Facility. The collection ranges from the 390hp Bristol Jupiter, through to today’s Eurojet EJ200 and includes the famous names of radial engines, such as Jupiter, Pegasus, Mercury, Hercules, Centaurus, etc, as well as a comprehensive collection of gas turbines from Theseus to Olympus, Pegasus, EJ200 and JSF engine components.

Because of its position inside a secure Rolls-Royce Military Aero Engine facility, visits of small parties are welcomed on a prior arrangement only basis, via the following contacts:

TALKS PROGRAMME
AUTUMN 2008 / SPRING 2009

15 September 2008.
David Wilson CEng. FRAeS:
“The History of Aviation at Farnborough”

20 October.
John Paton & John Stennard
“Flying model aircraft, with flight demonstrations”

17 November
Wing Cdr. Jason Hawker: “The Red Arrows”

19 January 2009.
John Bartlett: “Parnells”

16 February.
Bill Morgan and colleagues: “The Bolingbroke Recovery and Restoration Project”

16 March. Presidents Evening
Sir Stanley Hooker Memorial Address
by Mike Williams

6 April.
Annual General Meeting followed by
“More Heritage Archive videos”

all in the Concorde Room at BAWA starting at 6.00pm