Numerical machining - before CNC

I was an apprentice at Vickers Armstrongs, later British Aircraft Corporation Weybridge at about this time and shown the MED HED machine head (named after its inventors). For those with complex machining operations at home, glance at the following link.

**LINK**

BobH

Thanks for that, makes my mould making apprenticeship seem a little boring. I did get to operate the same jig boring machine though. Chris.

I too was an apprentice at Brooklands, although it was British Aerospace in my day. Terry Rawkins site, linked to above, brings back some great memories. Terry was there some years before me, but the same kit was still in use to make the Wind Tunnel models. There was a very interesting if somewhat eccentric guy, writing programs for model making. This used a very innovative technique at the time which I think they called watermarking. This machined the model profiles (which had to be extremely accurate due to scaling effects) by machining contours. Simple today with 3D modelling, but then it was done the hard way.

I did a 3month stint on the 13 x 9 Wind Tunnel as part of my technician apprenticeship, one of the more interesting placements. I was lucky enough to see a project from end to end. It was a piece of 3rd party work for a radar manufacturer, where we measured the impact of wind against a radar antennna with the impact of ice accretions. I even wrote up most of the report. Exciting stuff for a young, inqusitive 18 year old.

Apprenticeships were real in those days compared with now, which appear to be a name used to get people into some form of job, even if it is not a real one.