Latest News & Insights

The Tunnel Managers Forum met at Imperial College on 6 November, with 20 wind tunnel managers from academia and industry attending—the largest turnout to date. The event included a tour of Imperial’s facilities, featuring the 10×5 Low Speed and Supersonic wind tunnels. Held twice a year, the Forum… read more

The National Wind Tunnel Facility (NWTF) continues to support early career researchers through its Free Access Programme, which enables academic researchers to use NWTF facilities at no cost. This initiative is designed to reduce bureaucracy and accelerate testing, allowing researchers to carry out experiments that may not be… read more

University of Bristol’s aeroacoustic measurements show that noise reduction in Distributed Electric Propulsion can be achieved by adjusting blade phase angles between adjacent propellers. Electronic synchronization reveals promising strategies to over come one of the biggest hurdles of UAM—community noise. This dataset provides detailed acoustic measurements of synchronized… read more

The Density-Based Optical Measurements Training Workshop took place at the University of Manchester on 23–24 September 2025, led by Dr Mark Quinn. The two-day course combined theoretical sessions on the principles of schlieren, shadowgraph, and background-oriented schlieren (BOS) imaging with practical laboratory exercises, providing participants with hands-on experience… read more

The NWTF Instrumentation and Facility Automation Workshop at the University of Surrey brought together academics, wind tunnel operators, users, and customers to to share best practices in automating wind tunnel systems. Topics included facility operation, instrumentation calibration, safety systems, and data management. The workshop highlighted how automation and… read more

NWTF is partnering with Airbus, Boeing, and NASA to conduct cryogenic low-speed wind tunnel testing at ETW in Cologne, Germany, as part of a UK project called ICED CRM. This will involve testing scaled solid ice shapes on NASA’s High Lift Common Research Model to assess the impact… read more

We’re looking for a strategic, technically minded Project Manager to lead flagship National Wind Tunnel Facility (NWTF) projects that sit at the intersection of science, industry, and policy. You’ll be the engine behind high-impact collaborations, ensuring projects run smoothly, partnerships thrive, and research outcomes make waves nationally and… read more

The Airbus wind tunnel dataset on the RAE2822 transonic aerofoil is now publicly available on the NWTF Experimental Database. This dataset, from Airbus wind tunnel campaign, provides detailed measurements on a transonic aerofoil, RAE2822. The data, including pressure coefficients and aerodynamic forces, provided in a user-friendly .csv format…. read more

We’re excited to announce a new section on the NWTF website dedicated to New Technology in the UK Wind Tunnel Sector. As part of our commitment to supporting and promoting the UK wind tunnel community, this space will highlight cutting-edge technologies, tools, and research developed in the UK… read more

Thank you to Cranfield University for hosting a one-day training workshop focused on photonic sensors and instrumentation for wind tunnel applications. Delivered by Prof Ralph Tatam, Prof Simon Prince , Dr James Barrington and Prof Steve James, the workshop provided an in-depth introduction to optical fibre sensing technologies… read more

Thank you to the Aeroacoustics Research Team at the University of Bristol for hosting and leading the programme for the NWTF Propeller Forum 2025. We’d also like to thank everyone who took part and contributed to making the event a success. This one-day forum offered a valuable opportunity… read more