From Bubbenhall Road it’s just a typical factory unit from the first half of the twentieth century. But the CFS Aero business has its home in what was once a centre of aviation engine development and innovation.

Of course, there’s a strong argument to suggest that that’s still the case, as CFS’s Classic Engine Section Head, Tony Richards is quick to demonstrate. We’re standing in a pristine workshop, admiring a beautifully restored de Havilland Gipsy Queen engine. The job ticket has caught my eye - does it really say that this engine is bound for a Bristol F2B?

“Yes, that’s why it’s upside-down,” says Tony with wry pride.

The conversation that follows is one of those fantastic bonuses that crop up so often when I’m researching a story for this magazine. It’s not got a great deal to do with Alvis though, so we’ll save it for a little later.

The Alvis name was born in 1919 when Thomas John, the founder of T.G. John & Co. Ltd. first used it in a new logo for his engineering company. It was to become an icon of British engineering, based at the heart of the industrial Midlands. Its factory in Holyhead Road, Coventry was a local landmark until it was demolished in 1990.

As a car manufacturer, Alvis were great innovators; they pioneered-front wheel drive and led the vanguard of developing small, light and powerful engines. Their 1928 range included a fully independently suspended 1.4 litre sports model that could churn out an incredible (for the time) 75hp.

Given their enthusiasm for exploring the edges of technology, it was almost inevitable that the company should follow the opportunities appearing in the new world of aviation. They opened a new site next to Baginton Aerodrome and began a fresh chapter of innovation.

The entrance to the factory still retains the solid, monochrome feel of the forties. CFS’s strong connections to historic aviation mean

that the company couldn’t wish for a more fitting home, and it’s pleasing to see that they’ve held true to the vintage image. The new CFS logo is bright, but completely in keeping.

While waiting for a few minutes in reception I’m fascinated by displays of cutaway engines and glass cases of old altimeters and P2 compasses. In pride of place sits a beautifully polished cylinder and piston assembly from an Alvis Leonides.

Moving deeper into the building I’m struck by its massive construction. The original blast-resistant roof is (hardly surprisingly)

still in place, and the interior landscape is dominated by big-boned girders and stanchions.

Engineering machinery is everywhere, much of it noticeably vintage in design. “Most of these were here before us,” says Tony, pointing to the Alvis identification

The job ticket has caught my eye - does it really say that this engine is bound for a Bristol F2B?

“Yes, that’s why it’s upside-down,” says Tony with wry pride.

In pride of place sits a beautifully polished cylinder and piston assembly from an Alvis Leonides

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CALLINGALVIS

Tony Richards is a man who clearly loves his job. As head of the Classic Engine Section at CFS Aero, he’s an old-school file-and-micrometer engineer who probably bleeds Castrol when the centre punch slips.

He showed Jem Shaw around the CFS factory alongside Coventry Airport and revealed an unexpected hidden treasure of aviation history

The plant today. CFS is to be complimented on preserving the original spirit of the site.

In his element: Tony Richards examines an original engineering drawing for the R-R Falcon engine.

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"WE KNOW THAT FRANK WHITTLE WAS HERE IN THE FORTIES, TESTING THE EARLY TURBOJETS"

plates. “Alvis didn’t stint on buying quality equipment and, sixty years later, it’s still superior to anything you can buy today.”

Stepping outside, we make our way down to a cluster of blocky buildings that are bunched together behind the factory building. I should admit here that my knowledge of the Alvis history has significant gaps, so I may be alone in thinking - at least up the day of my tour - that the company’s engine output was entirely piston-orientated. So it’s with considerable surprise that I hear Tony’s explanation of what I’m seeing.

“These are jet engine test chambers. The work here was highly secret, but we know that Frank Whittle was here in the forties, testing the early turbojets.” He points to a cluttered, semi-derelict block. “That one is where he had a major failure, and the engine blew up. Even we didn’t know that until some researchers turned up here and asked to see the Whittle Room.”

The buildings have strange, angular convolutions along their sides, presumably as noise baffles, and a large silencer emerges from each one.

Tony produces a bunch of keys and opens the door to what appears to be a lock-up full of incomplete projects. A dusty yellow Volkswagen camper van stands in front of a flat-tyred Morris Minor of indeterminate colour. An early model Range Rover slouches in front of a door propped shut by a block of wood. We climb a curving staircase and I step into a dark cave with a floor covered by an inch of brownish water. Tony wisely stays on dry land as I splash towards the back of the room and, as my eyes adjust to the gloom

I see two huge control panels, that face each other across the dark lagoon. A six foot wide window of heavy glass sits in the middle of each one, but it’s impossible to penetrate the dead blackness beyond their grubby panes. I’m reminded irresistibly of the mountain stronghold of a Bond villain and I imagine white-coated scientists with brown-rimmed spectacles and yellow pencils behind their ears, speaking arcane techno-babble as a man-made volcano screams its rising cadence the other side of the glass.

I feel freezing water seeping into my shoes, take my photographs and return to the daylight.

Downstairs again, we squeeze past the Range Rover sentry and remove the high-security plank from the door. I follow Tony’s bobbing torch into another dark room, this one populated by various Honda motorcycle components. I recognise a CX500 vee-twin and we chat for a few moments about the merits of Honda’s liquid-cooled workhorse of the 1980s. It turns out that when Tony’s not working on engines he spends his spare time... working on engines.

Towards the back, roughly under the control panels on the floor above, we find two sets of heavy doors made of fine - and surprisingly well-preserved - Brazilian teak. The area is being used for all sorts of storage, so it’s something of a squeeze to get past and step into the jet test cell.

There’s no sign of the baffling visible in the brickwork outside. In here we’re in a cylindrical tunnel of grey concrete, pockmarked with white growths of efflorescence. A crane

Engineering before the digital age. CFS still uses many of the original Alvis machine tools for jobs where modern technology comes second to precision crafstmanship

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One of the test tunnels. Notice the angular baffles in the side wall.

Given the depth of the water on the floor, the fire alarm button seems unlikely to put to the test.

I IMAGINE WHITE-COATED SCIENTISTS WITH BROWN-RIMMED SPECTACLES AND YELLOW PENCILS BEHIND THEIR EARS

rail runs overhead the space between the rusting intake venturi to my right and the blackened exhaust receiver to my left. The de Havilland Goblins and Ghosts, the Rolls-Royce Derwents and Avons would have been wheeled through the doors behind me, lifted into place between the intake and exhaust and clamped to withstand the gigantic forces that would be unleashed. Even given the massive construction of the building, sitting one sheet of glass away from such sound and fury must have been a daunting experience.

Back outside, and blinking in the sunshine, we take stock of our surroundings. Tony points out an unimposing corrugated iron building. “That one there brings home to you the secrecy of the work they were doing here around the end of the War. It’s a Faraday Cage, with all sorts of shielding built into

the structure. It was used for testing stealth techniques, both for evading enemy radar and for developing the detection systems to detect stealth attacks. Bear in mind that Germany were into advanced development of the Horten jet, which was almost invisible to our radar.”

In all of this talk of aviation, we shouldn’t forget Alvis’s involvement with military vehicles. Their Saladin armoured car and

Saracen APC accompanied the British Army all over the world, along with the Scorpion, Scimitar and Fox reconnaissance tanks. And the unstoppable Stalwart has become iconic.

But of course Alvis also became well-known for its airfield crash tenders, and the factory site here also includes the fire truck test facility. Tucked at the back of the site we find a long, overgrown building. Along its side there are identical doors, each with

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The control panels are surrounded by white-faced analogue dials and moving-paper graphing instruments. The hefty, mechanical levers lend a fifties science fiction ambience to the scene.

The test cells are concrete tunnels with a fan-assisted intake venturi (right) and exhaust analysis rig (left), between which the engine would be mounted.

It’s a fair bet your phone won’t work in here. This unremarkable building was built to be radio-opaque for testing radar evasion and stealth detection.

SITTING ONE SHEET OF GLASS AWAY FROM SUCH SOUND AND FURY MUST HAVE BEEN A DAUNTING EXPERIENCE

an extractor duct above it. These are the test cells for the Rolls-Royce engines that powered the big Alvis machines. Stepping inside the main building we find a Rolls-Royce Avon engine similar to those that would have been tested at this site in the 1940s.

We come upon a pile of unidentifiable blocks and I realise that there’s history in every apparent junk pile in these buildings. Alvis was a world leader in self-changing gears, and there’s a fascinating thread of DNA in even this trivial fact. The self-changing gear - or pre-selector - concept is still popular on large vehicles such as buses and military machinery. Development was carried out at Bubbenhall Road by none other than David Brown (The “DB” in every Aston Martin model). “These were the blocks David Brown used for working on the self-changing gearboxes,” says Tony nonchalantly enough to make me do a double-take.

I become belatedly aware that I’ve soaked up an unjustifiable amount of the time of a notoriously busy man and we make our way back to the offices. Before I leave, Tony suggests I drive down to the bottom right of the site to look at the old military vehicle proving ground. There’s little left here now apart from sleeve-grabbing teasels and a cluster of rotting temporary buildings, unsettlingly ringed by tatters of police crime scene tape. Trudging among the overgrown tracks it comes to me that this place should be be preserved as part of our heritage.

Among these unimpressive, leaking buildings, history was made, and it’s still here to see. But without the custodianship of a National Trust or English Heritage, its days are numbered.

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The editor would like to express his sincere thanks to CFS Aero for allowing me to explore their historic site, and particularly to Tony Richards for being so generous with his time and dry humour. I loved every minute.

Nothing to see here: there’s little clue to show where the proving ground used to be.

Top: The gate and traffic lights kept squishy humans out of the way of rather more solid Stalwarts and Saracens.

Middle: A few decaying temporary buildings are still in evidence.

Bottom: Someone must know the story of this sign. Answers on a post card please...

19Aeroplane cover courtesy of Kelsey Publishing