This image shows the remains of an innovative catapult – designed to launch fighter aircraft into the sky – which has recently been uncovered by archaeologists in Oxfordshire. The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Mark III Catapult was one of a series of experimental schemes dating from the early years of the Second World War, although flaws in construction meant that it was never actually used.
Archaeologists from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) have been working at the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, the site of a former RAF base, to record this extraordinary piece of infrastructure, which has remained buried since the early 1940s.
Made up of a large rotating turntable and two runways just 82 metres long, the catapult was intended to launch aircraft via a pneumatic ram and a towing hook, powered by 12 Rolls-Royce Kestrel aero engines. Highly pressurised compressed air was intended to sling the aircraft along the runway, saving on fuel and allowing for take-off over very short distances.
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