This is a "BAe" sponsored project, that we were asked to undertake with our ability to take on board slightly off the wall projects.

This mechanism was required to enable "BAe" to establish the correct type of "HARD CORE" material for their new runway.

Their reason for this development was in construction of tilting nozzles used on aircraft such as "F-22" and presumably new "BAe" developments.

The basic use of the rig was to hold a dummy jet nozzle and pass beneath it various types of hard core slabs.

When the nozzle was activated and hot gas jets equivalent to those of the aircraft were blasted onto the materials the resulting, (destruction or damaged) slabs were inspected and the best type of materials chosen.

This although was not the final configuration of the rig as it was decided that a static rig would not have the same effect as that of a moving jet. With this in mind we were actioned to design and manufacture a rig that moved 1m up and down, rotated through 360 degrees and tilted at 90 degrees, all of this within a limited time frame to quicken the testing.

This was obviously more difficult and the following pages will outline our method of construction.

The photographs show the rig in assembly at "NAM" and you can make out the mechanisms we manufactured to allow the rig to operate successfully.

The right hand photo shows the rig in a grounded position, but you can see the upper rotational area and the inner and outer frame that allowed the rig to ride up and down by the required amount.

The photo also shows the winch type unit that was used to lift the lower rig assembly, we used a similar winch to control the movement of the nozzle when being tilted.

These photo's also give you an idea of the size of the finished assembly.

The rig was fully assembled on site at "NAM", where it was inspected by "BAe" personnel who required the rig. After this we transported it to "BAe" where it was assembled and commissioned.