Pyestock... a holy grail of urbex to some, but certainley a rite of passage for all urbexers so when given the opportunity to join Chrisr86, Robbiekhan and Olzy on a trip there I jumped at the chance.
It was a fantastic day (bar the minor accident where Chris' camera joined Gone's by falling from the turbine in cell 4) it was a fantastic day, with many heart pumping near misses with the secca on wheels and a run in with another group of explorers.
The National Gas Turbine Establishment was created to test and develop gas turbines and jet engines, as well as supporting major engine companies. It was originally conceived in 1949, but on a much smaller scale with all of the testing done inside all of the smaller buildings. However, the site was substantially expanded in 1961 due to the possibilty of supersonic jets with buildings like the air house and test cells being built into the North West corner. All manner of testing was done on site from jets such as the Tornado, Harrier and Concord to Royal Navy gas turbines and captured Soviet engines. All of this was conducted top secretly (hence the wooded surrounding to dampen the noise) without any planes leaving the ground. Pyestock was closed in 2000.
Pyestock is a completely unique site. The air house is able to create 352,000 horse power to generate speeds in excess of 2000mph for Concorde testing, believed to be the largest installation of it's kind in the Western World. Cell 4 was where the Concord testing was conducted at Mach 2 - 1522mph (although it had the potential to run at 2000mph) and at the equivalent pressure of 61,000 feet. Even whilst generating the full 352,000 horsepower the air house was unable to sustain cell 4 so another exhaust was built, Number 9. It was called this because there are 8 exhausts in the air house.
A strange hanging chair... any ideas anyone?
Some shameless self advertising
The famous door...
The 'blast door's from the abortion of a movie - Sahara. Actually believed they were solid blast doors and had some kind of function until another explorer that we met there shattered my dreams.
Cheers for reading
It was a fantastic day (bar the minor accident where Chris' camera joined Gone's by falling from the turbine in cell 4) it was a fantastic day, with many heart pumping near misses with the secca on wheels and a run in with another group of explorers.
The National Gas Turbine Establishment was created to test and develop gas turbines and jet engines, as well as supporting major engine companies. It was originally conceived in 1949, but on a much smaller scale with all of the testing done inside all of the smaller buildings. However, the site was substantially expanded in 1961 due to the possibilty of supersonic jets with buildings like the air house and test cells being built into the North West corner. All manner of testing was done on site from jets such as the Tornado, Harrier and Concord to Royal Navy gas turbines and captured Soviet engines. All of this was conducted top secretly (hence the wooded surrounding to dampen the noise) without any planes leaving the ground. Pyestock was closed in 2000.
Pyestock is a completely unique site. The air house is able to create 352,000 horse power to generate speeds in excess of 2000mph for Concorde testing, believed to be the largest installation of it's kind in the Western World. Cell 4 was where the Concord testing was conducted at Mach 2 - 1522mph (although it had the potential to run at 2000mph) and at the equivalent pressure of 61,000 feet. Even whilst generating the full 352,000 horsepower the air house was unable to sustain cell 4 so another exhaust was built, Number 9. It was called this because there are 8 exhausts in the air house.
A strange hanging chair... any ideas anyone?
Some shameless self advertising
The famous door...
The 'blast door's from the abortion of a movie - Sahara. Actually believed they were solid blast doors and had some kind of function until another explorer that we met there shattered my dreams.
Cheers for reading
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