Welcome to the Bristol Aero Talks website.
Bristol Aero Talks are a series of talks on aerospace and related high-technology subjects with particular emphasis on the history of Bristol and the surrounding areas.
Bristol Aero Talks is pleased to announce that the new season of talks will start in September, the program is currently being finalised. Talk announcements will be sent out and the website updated as details are confirmed.
Bristol Aero Talks are pleased to say that with the agreement of Sally Cordwell, the CEO of Aerospace Bristol, the talks will continue to be held at Aerospace Bristol. These are normally held on a Tuesday in The John James Theatre but please check the talk announcements as changes to day or location can occur. For information on getting to Aerospace Bristol please see their website at https://aerospacebristol.org/find-us .
In order to cover the costs associated with the talks program such as reimbursing the costs incurred by the speakers we will continue to ask for a donation from attendees when leaving the talk. In the event there is an accrued surplus at the end of the season of talks it will be donated to Aerospace Bristol.
Bristol Aero Talks makes use of e-mail as the primary communications medium and to handle matters efficiently a number of e-mail addresses have been set up - please see the Contact Us page for more information including how to receive talk announcements by e-mail.
NEWS
Bristol Aero Talks are pleased to announce the next talk in the new season.
The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is one of the most iconic spacecraft in history and over its 35-year operational career it has been associated with many spectacular images of the cosmos.
Hubble was joint endeavour between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). In return for providing the Solar Array system and the Faint Object Camera, ESA secured 15% of the viewing time for its scientists. The Solar Array system was provided by a team led by engineers at British Aerospace (BAe) in Bristol.
In his talk Dr Nigel Wright, who was the BAe Design Manager for the Solar Arrays, will look back at the history of the project, its complex organisation and its impact, the design constraints driving the unique solar array design, the impacts arising from the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger, the problems encountered in orbit after the launch and their subsequent recovery and the return of the hardware to Earth and the unique opportunity this afforded us to learn about the space environment.
This talk will be held at 7:15 pm on Tuesday January 27th at Aerospace Bristol in The John James Theatre.
Information on the next scheduled talk can be found by clicking Here
Details of the forthcoming talks program may be found by clicking Here
Information on the earlier talks given under the Bristol Aero Talks banner may be found by clicking Here
To access the talks being made available for remote access click Here
External Events
Not an actual event but it was felt that those who interested in the Bristol Aero Talks would also be interested in an update on the work of The Bristol Britannia Preservation Society who have been working diligently at Kemble to restore the external appearance of the last genuine RAF Britannia aircraft XM496 ‘Regulus’. It now looks resplendent in its new paint job. We understand that the Society welcomes members, whether actively working on the machine or more passively as Friends of the aircraft. Full details are on their website (Click Here) including the dates on which the aircraft can be visited.
Not receiving announcements of talks?
We have been advised that in a few cases the e-mails announcing talks are not being delivered but are instead being trapped by the SPAM filters. We would recommend checking the folder where your ISP sends the e-mails it filters.
For more on this topic please please click on the link below.
