The Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum in Hendon, London, was opened in 1972, to showcase the history of the RAF. The museum was awarded a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund to support redevelopment to celebrate and commemorate the Centenary of the RAF in 2018. Two innovative exhibitions will explore the first one hundred years through the stories of its people and invite visitors to imagine its future contribution and technology.
Location: North London
The new exhibitions required the redevelopment of the large Hanger 1, and ACCL became involved as a subcontractor of Bower Fuller, who were awarded the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) building services contract. The innovative exhibits will utilise the latest technologies so ACCL was required to install a state of the art cabling infrastructure.
An Excel Category 6 UTP cabling system was installed over two floors. The cabling infrastructure was designed to give the museum maximum flexibility on how the space can be used to exhibit its vast collection of aircraft.
The main computer room is located on the ground floor, with three satellite communications cabinets located around the hanger. The cabinets were interconnected via OM4 multimode fibre backbone cables and approximately 470 Category 6 RJ45 outlets were installed throughout the hanger.
ACCL worked closely with the electrical contractors, overcoming challenges regarding the design of the containment for the network cabling and project managing the installation. Over 80 floor boxes have been installed within the main hanger area, fed via a perimeter cable tray system. The capacity required, needed to be carefully calculated, so that the electrical contractor could provide sufficient conduits to feed the floorboxes, before the concrete floor was laid.
The project has now been handed over to the MET Studio exhibition designers to start connecting the displays which tell the story of the first hundred years of the RAF. Working with the museum’s exhibition development team. MET will provide 3D and 2D graphic design services as well as advising on the interactive exhibit development and visitor experience being created for this exciting new gallery.
The RAF Museum has another project starting in the Milestone hanger, and ACCL will be supporting the electrical contractor in deployment of additional network cabling infrastructures.
In addition, ACCL will be working directly with the RAF Museum to deliver additional IT cabling services within the museum campus site, including the main restaurant.
Nick Wright, Head of IT, RAF Museum commented:
“ACCL are experts in data cabling and I have been very happy with their approach to the Hanger 1 project and the installation that they carried out. They have developed a very thorough understanding of the Hendon site and I am delighted that we will be working with them on further projects to develop the museum.”
Wayne Connor, Managing Director ACCL responded:
“ACCL is delighted to be working with the RAF Museum as it develops new exhibitions to tell the story of the RAF through its people and its collections, using leading edge technology.”
ACCL designs, implements and supports the data and communications networks which provide connectivity and drive business performance. Privately owned, and with more than 25 years of experience in London and the South East, customers are at the heart of everything we do. Our specialist cabling services are designed with your current and future needs in mind, bringing high-quality solutions that are excellent value.
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