Hi Matthew, Enjoyed your article. I have contacted you via Aus-Soaring, as there may be a valuable discussion thread here.
Whose idea was it to take a group photo in front of a crowd photo? Somewhat Daliish, or perhaps more like something Woody Allen would do? Can you please name everybody in this group shot? In time, it might prove to be historically valuable. Brian Hayhow is mentioned, but I do not see him. Am I missing something? Were the under 20 Woman basketballers tall? Being the AIS, I know that they attend to detail. For example basketballers staying there sleep in specially made beds to suit their height! However each participants' cell is large enough to cope with these giant beds. BTY, as far as I know they are all single beds! Yeah, recovery is very important. It would seem that you totally missed the availability of the AIS Sauna. In my opinion an essential piece of kit in any club that is serious about looking after its XC pilots! With one of these, you do not have to worry about fiddling with the hot and water taps! I am sure that for the silver tongued, grants might be available for the initial Sauna installation, but I have no idea on operating costs. However I suspect that these might be horrendous. Comments please. Interesting that you mention a comparison with motorsport. Maurie Bradley (who incidentally, as National Coach at that time, originally set up the first visits to the AIS), liked to draw a comparison with marathon runners. You mention doing weighing to measure water consumption. You do not have to do this. If you started a flight with 5 law of drinking water and ended with 3 law left, then it is quite obvious that you consumed 2 law! This means nothing! However, among the many things that Maurie did to advance our sport (almost certainly for the first time anywhere in the world), was that he did a great deal of actual weighing of competition pilots, before and after a flight.[In passing, I might mention that he also fitted out - generally the same pilots who agreed to being weighed - many pilots with a heart rate monitor. It would seem reasonable that these would give a level of stress, when correlated against the pilots verbal report. (and maybe GPS data - this may have been before GPS was available???) Anyway, under stress, glider pilots routinely recorded heart rates of well over 200 .Personally, I do not find this surprising. Re weight loss, what Maurie found out was that inevitably, there was a significant daily weight loss of pilots flying in competitions. Ann Woolf , can you give us more detail? I am sure that Maurie must have published this data, and of major importance, the conclusions he drew. Matthew, what you must understand is that in this weighing, a set of bathroom scales WILL NOT DO. Maurie used scales that measured to within a few grams. Obviously these scales cost a whole lot more than everyday bathroom scales. A figure that springs to mind is $400 at the time. However I am prepared to be corrected on this. After Maurie died, I enquired as to the whereabouts of these scales. I first contacted Cath Conway and then Bernard Eckley , both being RTO Sports SA around this time. Each denied having the scales, although knowing about them. It is highly unlikely that the scales were sent to the local tip. So I wonder where these scales ended up? Who has a VERY accurate set of bathroom scales? Gary
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