Steam goes Supersonic

Series

Series Name

Home and Away

Issue

Issue No.

8

Date Released

1956

Length of issue (in feet)

485

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Moving House
2. 2South for Sunshine?
3. 3Rest and be Thankful
4. 4Steam goes Supersonic

Story

Story No. within this Issue

4 / 4

Summary

Babcock and Wilcox synopsis: This item takes us to the works of the Bristol Aeroplane Co., where we see Britannia air liners under construction and test, and glimpse the development of jet aero engines by this famous organisation. Babcock & Wilcox have contributed to this work by manufacture, at Renfrew, of a huge fusion-welded pressure chamber used by Bristol Aero-engines Ltd., in testing turbo-jet and ram-jet engines under the conditions of high air-speeds and low atmospheric pressure that are associated with high-altitude and supersonic flight. The film shows the delivery and installation of this giant pressure-vessel and the layout of the completed plant, in which steam is used to produce certain test conditions. The film ends with an exciting record from a camera mounted on a ram-jet engine travelling at supersonic speed.

Keywords

Aircraft; Industry and manufacture

Written sources

British Film Institute Databases
Synopses of the Babcock Film Magazines booklet   p10. Used for synopsis
Scottish Screen Archive database   Ref.1519

Credits:

Sponsor

Babcock and Wilcox, Ltd.

Producer

Cyril Randell

Editor

Ken Collins

Director

Peter Dixon

Production Co.

Technical & Scientific Films Ltd.

This series is held by:

Film Archive

Name

British Film Institute (BFI)

Email

For BFI National Archive enquiries:
nonfictioncurators@bfi.org.uk
For commercial/footage reuse enquiries:
footage.films@bfi.org.uk

Web

http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web

Phone

020 7255 1444

Fax

020 7580 7503

Address

21 Stephen Street
London W1T 1LN

Notes

The BFI National Archive also preserves the original nitrate film copies of British Movietone News, British Paramount News, Empire News Bulletin, Gaumont British News, Gaumont Graphic, Gaumont Sound News and Universal News (the World War II years are covered by the Imperial War Museum).

Series held

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