driving force was one of our engineers who set himself the challenge of rowing the Atlantic. His involvement in that – a true feat of endurance – led to discus- sions with rowers and ultimately onto how aerospace technology could be ap- plied to sport,” says Davies. “At the time we were already working on a project for British Cycling, so all of the parts sud- denly came together and formed what we see today: a beautiful working rela- tionship with UK Sport.” One of the earliest – and still one of
most celebrated – successes of the part- nership was the creation of ‘Arthur’, the skeleton sled that propelled Amy Williams to a gold medal at Vancou- ver 2010 – Britain’s first individual gold at a winter Olympics in three decades. Describing the design process, Davies says the involvement of all parties, in- cluding athletes, was crucial. “The first thing we did with the
skeleton project was to get Andreas Schmid, head of technical development at British Skeleton, to explain to us the engi- neering involved in the sport. We looked at a sled, reviewed it, assessed what was good, figured out what was bad and came up with a plan to improve it. “We then asked the athletes what
they wanted from their sleds. The parallels with military equipment are clear – our aircraft are flown by pilots and ships operated by sailors, so we wanted to make sure the skeleton sled did exactly what the athletes wanted. We organised a half-day session with
Wheelchair racing
BAE used the same technology and thinking behind the Eurofighter Typhoon – one of the world’s most advanced jet fighters – to enhance the aerodynamics of wheelchair racers. Athletes were put through their paces at BAE’s wind tunnel to help find their optimal racing posi- tion. The wind tunnel – normally used to test fighter jets at speeds of over 200mph – showed how the wheelchair racers interact with the air around them, simulating racing speeds of over 30mph. After testing, BAE used com-
putational fluid dynamics data to wheelchair athletes better under- stand how their body position affects
One of BAE’s current projects for Sochi is to improve the aerodynamics of the bobsleigh team Either UK Sport comes to us with a specific
need or we explore a sport’s requirements and identify how our facilities can offer solutions
all skeleton athletes – including Amy – and made sure we captured their thoughts. We took their input, com- bined it with good engineering and came up with a design concept and pro- duced a prototype. The prototype was raced successfully at the World Cham- pionships in Lake Placid the year before the Vancouver Games so a decision was made to use the design at the Olympics. The rest – as they say – is history.” Davies adds that the whole process
from concept to end product took nearly two years, making it one of the longer running projects BAE has contributed to. “The objective was to provide the British skeleton team with what we call ‘the sled for life’,” he says. “It was a long project but one that was
wind resistance, allowing the team to improve the athletes’ seating positions as well as highlight their op- timal posture for racing in different track situations. BAE is also helping the British wheelchair athletes by creating a new and improved version of the wheelchair in partnership with aerodynamic specialists TotalSim and DRAFT, a wheelchair manufacturer. The new wheelchair will have im-
proved rolling resistance in wheel alignment and tyre pressure, as well as the stiffness of the wheelchair frame, and it’s hoped that it will be used in future track and long dis- tance road events to shave precious tenths of seconds off winning times with a stronger, lighter and more aerodynamic design.
really rewarding – the sleds we de- signed, or derivatives of them, are still in use by the team today.” There is another strand that binds
BAE’s sports projects. Most are designed to achieve those crucial, marginal gains that decide whether an athlete makes it to the podium or not. Davies mentions BAE’s work to improve the aerodynam- ics of the helmets worn by the Team GB bobsleigh team. The difference between a silver medal and seventh place at the World Championships was 0.27 seconds.
WORK IN PROGRESS While each project is different, Davies says most are launched in one of two ways. “Either UK Sport comes to us with a specific need – like a new timing system
The new chair was unveiled in September 2013 to mark the renewal of the partnership
Issue 3 2013 © cybertrek 2013 Read Sports Management online
sportsmanagement.co.uk/digital 29
CASE STUDY
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