Large-scale Facilities to Test Safety, Reliability and Environmental Compatibility

During the first half of the 20th century, German aeronautics succeeded in establishing concepts and setting up trend-setting large-scale test facilities. Especially in the years immediately prior to and during World War Two, politics and government support led to a facility technology that represents peak performances. Examples are, for instances, the former engine high-altitude test facility of the “Bavarian Motor Company” (“Bayerische Motoren Werke, BMW”) in Munich-Milbertshofen, which is still in operation at the American Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), located near the city of Tullahoma in the State of Tennessee [1], and the large wind tunnel erected in the alpine Ötztal for energy-supply reasons in the immediate vicinity of a power station; Americans and the French fought bitterly after the war over this wind tunnel, which is still today in Modane (France), as wind tunnel S1, one of the wind tunnels used by the Frenxh “Office Nationale des Etudes et Recherches Aéronautiques, ONERA” within the Airbus program [2]. Both facilities were, like many other German test facilities, after the war diassembled and as reparations installed and operated by the Victorious Powers.