Focke's wind tunnel

Focke’s wind tunnel stands in a small backyard shed near Bremen’s main station. The shed once housed Henrich Focke’s private laboratory, built in 1960 when he was 70. Focke, aviation pioneer and co-founder of Focke-Wulf, designed the first fully controllable helicopter, the Fw 61. He worked there until shortly before his death in 1979, studying slow flight and helicopter stability. The rediscovery of the lab and its wind tunnel in 1997 was seen as a major find for science and technology. The wind tunnel is a closed recirculating type for subsonic speeds. It can produce wind up to 16 metres per second and was still working when found. The lab’s simple tools included kitchen scales to measure forces, stove pipes to guide air, and curtains to cut swirl. Everything remained as Focke had left it 20 years earlier, though the building was in poor condition. Former student Kai Steffen tracked it down after reading Focke’s memoirs and contacting the family. Today the laboratory is preserved as it was until 1975. After repair and restoration it opened as a museum in 2005, with modern measuring gear added later. Schools and universities still use it for experiments. The building and tunnel were fully restored by autumn 2008 and are now protected as a technical monument.