mark_pilkingtonWe have two of the film props (non flying replicas) surviving in Australia, I understand they were sent out to help promote the film when it was released?
a Bristol Boxkite from the film is with the Museum of Army Flying at Oakey in Qld.
http://www.161recceflt.org.au/MAAF/AircraftDisplays/AircraftDisplays.htm
A Demoiselle from the film is with the Ballarat Aviation Museum in Victoria.
http://www.ballarat.com/aviation_museum.htm
I have a pic somewhere but cant find any online.
I understand this one was previously displayed at BullCreek in WA and when it was removed by its owner Ansett Airlines they built their own replica “replica”, but atm I cant access their website to evidence that by photo or link either.
I am not sure what role these apparantly non-flying replicas played in the film itself or if they ended up on the cutting room floor, or if they were purely marketing models.
from Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Those_Magnificent_Men_in_their_Flying_Machines
Aircraft
The film is notable for reproductions of 1910-era aircraft, including a triplane, monoplanes, biplanes and also Horatio Phillips’s 20-winged multiplane from 1904.[8] Air Commodore Wheeler insisted on authentic materials but allowed the use of modern engines and modifications necessary to ensure safety. Of 20 types built in 1964 at £5,000 pounds each, six could fly, flown by six stunt pilots and maintained by 14 mechanics.[2] The race takeoff scene where seven aircraft are in the air at once included a composite addition. Flying conditions were monitored with aerial scenes filmed before 10 am or in early evening when the air was least turbulent, for the replicas, true to the originals, were flimsy – and control, especially in the lateral plane, tended to be marginal. If the weather was poor, interiors or other incidental sequences were substituted. Wheeler eventually served not only as the technical adviser but also as the aerial supervisor throughout the production and later wrote a comprehensive background account of the film and the replicas that were constructed to portray period aircraft.[9]The following competitors were listed:
Number 1: Richard Mays, “Antoinette IV” (Aircraft number 8: flying replica)
Number 2: Sir Percy Ware-Armitage, “Avro Triplane” (Aircraft number 12: flying replica)
Number 3: Orvil Newton, “Bristol Boxkite”, nicknamed “The Phoenix Flyer” (Aircraft number 7: flying replica)
Number 4: Lieutenant Parsons, “Picaut Dubrieul” nicknamed “HMS Victory” (Aircraft number 4)
Number 5: Harry Popperwell, “Little Fiddler” (Aircraft number 5)
Number 6: Colonel Manfred von Holstein and Captain Rumpelstoss, “Eardley Billing Tractor Biplane” (Aircraft number 11: flying replica)
Number 7: Mr Wallace. (Aircraft number 14)
Number 8: Charles Wade. (Aircraft number unknown)
Number 9: Mr Yamamoto, “Japanese Eardley Billing Tractor Biplane” (Aircraft number 1: duplicate flying replica)
Number 10: Count Emilio Ponticelli, “Philips Multiplane”, “Passat Ornithopter”, “Lee Richards Annular Biplane” and “Vickers 22 Monoplane” (Aircraft number 2: flying replica)
Number 11: Henri Monteux. (Aircraft number unknown)
Number 12: Pierre Dubois, “Santos-Dumont Demoiselle” (Aircraft number 9: flying replica)
Number 13: Mr Mac Dougall, “Blackburn Monoplane” nicknamed “Wake up Scotland” (Aircraft number 6: original vintage aircraft)
Number 14: Harry Walton (no number assigned).While each aircraft was an accurate reproduction, some “impersonated” other types. For instance, The Phoenix Flyer was a Bristol Boxkite built by F.G. Miles Engineering Co. at Ford, Sussex, representing Curtiss biplane of 1910. Annakin had apparently expressed a desire to have a Wright Flyer in the film.[6] The Bristol (a British derivative of the French 1909 Farman biplane) was chosen instead because it shared a common general layout with a Wright or Curtiss pusher biplane of the era, and had an excellent reputation for tractability.[9] For the impersonation, the replica had “The Phoenix Flyer” painted on its outer rudder surfaces and was also called a “Gruber-Newton Flyer” adding the name of its primary backer to the nomenclature; although the American pilot character, Orvil Newton inaccurately describes his aircraft to Patricia Rawnsley as a “Curtiss with an Anzani engine.”[2]
F G Miles, chiefly responsible for its design and manufacture, built the replica Bristol Boxkite with the original standard twin rudder installation and powered the replica with a 65 hp Rolls-Royce A65. In the course of testing, Air Commodore Wheeler had a third rudder inserted between the other two (as did some original Boxkites) to improve directional control, and replaced the first engine with a Rolls-Royce C90 that barely delivered the power of the original 50 hp Gnome rotary, and provided a 45 mph top speed.[9] The Boxkite was tractable and the scene in the story when the aircraft loses a pair of main wheels just after takeoff but lands smoothly was repeated 20 times for the cameras. In the penultimate flying scene, a stuntman was carried in the Boxkite’s undercarriage and carried out a fall and roll (the stunt had to be repeated to match the principal actor’s roll and revival). Slapstick stunts on the ground and in the air were a major element and often the directors requested repeated stunts; the stuntmen were more than accommodating – it meant more pay.[6]
The Eardley Billing Tractor Biplane replica flown by David Watson appeared in two guises, as the German pilot’s aircraft, in more or less authentic form, impersonating an early German tractor biplane, as well as the Japanese pilot’s mount, modified with boxkite-like side curtains over the interplane struts and other colourful fuselage decorations.
In addition to the flying aircraft, several unsuccessful aircraft of the period were represented by non-flying replicas – including contraptions such as an ornithopter (the Passat Ornithopter) flown by the Italian contender, the Walton Edwards Rhomboidal, Picaut Dubrieul, Philips Multiplane and the Little Fiddler (a canard, or tail-first design). Several of the “non-flying” types “flew” with the help of “movie magic”. The Lee Richards Annular Biplane with circular wings (built by Denton Partners on Woodley Aerodrome near Reading) “flew” better than its 1910 namesake, although the movie model was towed into the air.[9]
The flying replicas were specifically chosen to be different enough that an ordinary audience could distinguish them. They were all types reputed to have flown well, in or about 1910. In most cases this worked well, but there were a few surprises, adding to an accurate historical reassessment of the aircraft concerned. For example, the replica of the Santos-Dumont Demoiselle, a forerunners of today’s ultralight aircraft, was in its early form unable to leave the ground except in short hops. Extending the wingspan and fitting a more powerful Ardem 50 hp engine produced only marginal improvement. When Doug Bianchi and the Personal Planes production staff who constructed the replica consulted with Alan Wheeler, he recalled that the Demoiselle’s designer and first pilot, Alberto Santos-Dumont was a very short, slightly built man. A suitably small pilot, Joan Hughes, a wartime member of the Air Transport Auxiliary who was the Airways Flying Club chief instructor, was hired. With the reduced payload, the diminutive Demoiselle flew very well, and Hughes proved a consummate stunt flyer.[6]
Bianchi had in 1960 created a one-off Vickers 22 (Blériot type) Monoplane, using Vickers company drawings intended for the Vickers Flying Club in 1910. The completed prototype was available and 20th Century Fox purchased the replica, though it required a new engine and modifications including replacing the wooden fuselage structure with welded steel tubing as well as incorporating ailerons instead of wing-warping. The Vickers 22 became the final type used by the Italian contestant.[9] Sometime after the film, the Vickers was sold in New Zealand. It is believed to have flown once, at Wellington Airport in the hands of Keith Trillo, and is now at the SouthWard Museum.[citation needed]
Peter Hillwood of Hampshire Aero Club constructed an Avro Triplane Mk IV, using drawings provided by Geoffrey Verdon Roe, son of A.V. Roe, the designer. The construction of the triplane followed A.V. Roe’s specifications and was the only replica that utilised wing-warping successfully. With a more powerful 90 hp Cirrus II replacing the 35 hp Green engine that was in the original design, the Avro Triplane proved to be a lively performer even with a stuntman dangling from the fuselage.[6]
The Antoinette IV movie model closely replicated the slim, graceful monoplane that was very nearly the first aircraft to fly the English Channel, in the hands of Hubert Latham, and won several prizes in early competitions. When the Hants and Sussex Aviation Company from Portsmouth Aerodrome undertook its construction, the company followed the original structural specifications carefully, although an out-of-period de Havilland Gypsy I engine was used. The Antoinette’s wing structure proved, however, to be dangerously flexible, and lateral control was very poor, even after the wing bracing was reinforced with extra wires, and the original wing-warping was replaced with “modern” ailerons (hinged on the rear spar rather than from the trailing edge, as in the “real” Antoinette). The final configuration was still considered marginal in terms of stability and lateral control.[9]
The realism and the attention to detail in the replicas of vintage machines are a major contributor to the enjoyment of the film, and although a few of the flying stunts were achieved through the use of models and cleverly disguised wires, most aerial scenes featured actual flying aircraft. The few genuine vintage aircraft used included a Deperdussin used as set dressing, and the flyable 1912 Blackburn Monoplane “D” (the oldest genuine British aircraft still flying[10]), belonged to the Shuttleworth Trust based at Old Warden, Bedfordshire. When the filming was completed, the “1910 Bristol Boxkite” and the “1911 Roe IV Triplane” were retained in the Shuttleworth Collection,[11] Both replicas are still in flyable condition, albeit flying with different engines.[12] For his role in promoting the film, the non-flying “Passat Ornithopter” was given to aircraft restorer and preservationist, Cole Palen (1925-1993) who displayed it at his Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome, New York, where it still exists and is on display in the 21st century.
During the promotional “junkets” accompanying the film in 1965, a number of the vintage aircraft and film replicas used in the production were flown in both the United Kingdom and the United States. The pilots who had been part of the aerial team readily agreed to accompany the promotional tour in order to have a chance to fly these aircraft again.[
Regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonNBC in the US reported “Neil Young, first man on the moon has died”….
Its sad that supposedly serious News Broadcasters don’t review and edit material they put to air to the scrutiny newspapers once did, and could make such a mistake?
Its also pity that this thread has a typo in his name as well, (Neil Armst”R”ong) – hopefully a Mod can correct it?
He is deserving of our respect.
RIP – Neil Armstrong – Rest in Peace
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonI watched and shared those steps with him as a 9 year old on a day off school, watching it all unfold on the grainy screen of a black and white TV, an event that captured the world’s imagination, and truely represented mankind “stepping out of its own world” for the first time.
He shunned the limelight for many years, and as he is quoted as saying himself, he was just a man who did his job, but he will long be remembered for what he did, and how he did it,
and that it was he, who made that Giant Leap for Mankind.
– rest in peace.
His family said they had a simple request to people in memory of Armstrong’s life.
“Honour his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink,” it said
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonTJ this one was to be restored to flight, however the owner must have changed priorities.
Its not clear the aircraft has changed hands, a number of the aircraft on display in the museum are not owned by the museum, and are on display in trade of lower parking costs, that may well be the case with this airframe?
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonMark -I don’t think the P-40 is in any way as important to the British people as the Olympics ! . We have a serious health problem over here with obesity -anything that encourages people to participate in sport is vital at the moment!
(Without diverting the debate from the important issue of Copping and the P-40 – )
David, Australia got sucked into funding elite sports in the belief Olympic success encourages people to participate in sport, recent funding has been in the order of $170M per annum, our gold medals apparantly cost $3M each.
Our Olympic Committee attacked a recent report that recommended we redirect the funding into grass roots sporting rather than elite sports, claiming instead we had to spend more and more to win gold and punch above our weight. Instead, all this elite funding simply encourages people to sit on their couches or in pubs, and watch other people exercise!
Recent articles in Australia questioning this level of funding given the reduced medal tally have reported:
what little research has been done – none of it by the AOC – suggests the Olympics have no significant impact on participation rates, beyond short-lived spikes in attendance at programs such as Little Athletics. Indeed, one study by the Australian centre for Olympic studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, showed that participation by people aged 15-plus in 14 out of 21 Olympic sports decreased after the Sydney Olympics.
Dont let the conga line suck the UK into an “Arms” (& Legs) Race for Olympic surpremacy.
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonFor those of you still interested in the Olympics from an Australian perspective (or at least mine) and here is an update of the situation described above of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) sitting on $100M and blaming the less than expected Australian Olympic result on a lack of government funding even though its at record levels!! (these people are living in a fools paradise!)
heres some more of the story unfolding.
IT was the meeting where Australia’s Olympic boss John Coates laid bare his views on winning medals, public money for sport and the fate that awaited any government which denied him either.
Three months after the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, where Australia had performed extraordinarily well to finish sixth on the medal tally behind much larger nations, Coates came face to face with the four members of a government-commissioned panel charged with conducting a review of Australian sport. The setting was a non-descript Sydney office belonging to the Department of Health. The mood was tense.
Coates said Australia’s goal for the London Games was to win 55 medals, that anything less would be seen as failure and that Olympic sports needed more money to achieve this goal. Sam Mostyn, a company director prominent in sports administration as an AFL commissioner, asked Coates whether there was any limit on what Australia should be prepared to do to maintain its place in the Olympic pecking order.
The president of the Australian Olympic Committee prickled at the question. Of course there was no limit. He went further. No Australian prime minister wanted to be the national leader who had to explain why our athletes were winning fewer medals, Coates said. Any government that tried to reduce funding for Olympic sports would be reminded of the disaster of Montreal.
Coates made one further remark which stuck in the minds of the panel members who would subsequently produce the 357-page Crawford report. The AOC was answerable to no government in Australia. Its sole master was the Olympic movement.
A year later, when the Crawford report was published, it provoked a savage response. Coates publicly accused its authors of insulting Australian Olympians, returning to the “White Australia days” by promoting Anglo-centric sports and condemning to mediocrity our performance at future Games.
He accused the sports minister who released the report, Kate Ellis, of vacating the subsequent debate, while praising Kevin Rudd as a prime minister who understood the Games and the importance of sports performance to Australia’s international standing. Behind the scenes, AOC lawyers filed Freedom of Information requests investigating the way the panel had been appointed and possible conflicts of interests by David Crawford, a retired company director and chairman who had established the governance model for the AFL, Football Federation Australia and Cricket Australia, and his fellow panel members; Mostyn, former Hockey Australia president and Australian Sports Commission director Pam Tye and Colin Carter, a business consultant and former AFL commissioner.
The panel members received legal letters from the AOC suggesting their findings and public comments had damaged the reputation of the Olympic movement. Gemba, an independent sports consultancy commissioned to provide data to the Crawford panel, was also subject to AOC legal action.
Coates this week declined to answer questions from The Weekend Australian about the AOC’s campaign against the Crawford report. An AOC spokesman said it was “premature” to draw implications from the London medal count.
The Crawford panel’s suggestion that Australia should set “realistic” medal targets at Olympics, rather than the top-five medal tally place Coates cited in demanding an extra $109 million a year in taxpayer money for sport, prompted a withering reply from Coates. “We were fourth in Sydney, we were fourth in Athens, sixth in Beijing.” he said at the release of the report. “Now that he is telling us that eighth is good enough, maybe 10th will satisfy Mr Crawford?”
Coates may have to settle for a place well below that, if Australia’s position on the medal tally at the midpoint of the London Olympics is any guide. Last night, Australia was in 16th place. At the corresponding point of the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics, Australia was placed second, fourth and seventh.
Crawford’s point was not about medal tallies and where Australia should rank against other nations at the Games. Rather, the report argued medal counts were a dubious measure of what a modern nation should aim to get out of sport. It advocated a shift in funding bias away from the Olympics and towards the sports most Australians play and identify with, and a greater emphasis on participation and less on elite performance.
What Coates saw as a threat to Australia’s global sporting prestige now reads as a sensible, sober reflection on the events of this week. Peter Bartels, a former chairman of the Australian Sports Commission, yesterday urged the federal government to revisit Crawford’s findings in London’s wake. “It certainly needs to be reassessed in light of what has happened since it was delivered,” he told The Weekend Australia.
Bartels says it is the ASC, rather than the AOC, that is responsible for public funding and performance of Australian athletes and a lack of leadership within the organisation since Beijing has cruelled its ability to perform this role. Since Bartels stood down four years ago after 10 years as chairman, the ASC has had a chairman, two acting chairmen and three chief executives. “That is not a good basis for stability,” he says.
He believes tough decisions need to be made about the funding of future Olympic teams, arguing the Australian Institute of Sport is warehousing too many established athletes with no medal prospects and the money would be better spent discovering and developing younger talent.
“We need to sharpen the focus of the AIS,” he says. “We need a heavy cull and funds redirected towards talent identification, sports potential and coaching. The future needs more strategic direction, not necessarily more money.”
As an aside, the former national track cyclist also had a message for any Olympians who saw their place at the Games, and even medals, as an entitlement. “I am disturbed at the the demeanour of a number of athletes representing Australia,” he says. “The outstanding role model for me at the moment in international sport is Bradley Wiggins. He is understated, he is overachieving and he is not asking anybody for much. He has got a degree of humility about him.”
Former Athletics Australia chief executive Danny Corcoran, one of the few senior Olympic sport administrators prepared to endorse the Crawford report at the time it was released, yesterday backed Bartels’ call for government to reconsider it and devote more attention to supporting coaches and junior athletes.
Coates won the initial battle against the Crawford report. The government did not champion the report or its findings and after a fierce, six-month lobbying campaign, the AOC secured a further $195m over four years out of the 2010 federal budget. The low-hanging fruit within Crawford’s recommendations was picked by Ellis and her successor Mark Arbib. The most difficult and important reforms to Australia’s sporting system — spilling all positions at the ASC and divesting its control over the AIS and state-based sports institutes — were shelved.
More significantly for Coates, the primacy of the Olympics remains unchanged.
Federal Sport Minister Kate Lundy agrees the Crawford report should be reconsidered as part of the post-London assessment of Australia’s elite sports performance, along with any lessons that can be learned from how comparable nations fund their sport.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian from London, the former rower says a strength of the Crawford report is its focus on grassroots sport and participation. She believes a weakness in the report is the lack of weight it attached to the role of the Olympics and other major championships in motivating participation in sport and shaping our national identity.
“The only part of the equation that I don’t think emerged in the Crawford report was how we project ourselves internationally on things like the medal count,” Lundy says. “Because it is the thing that everyone quantifies, it does become a test of a nation’s sporting prowess, whether we like it or not. For Australia, it is not just how that inspires people to play sport. It is how we look out into the world and what opportunities are derived from that.”
Lundy says there will be no “panicked response” if Australia finishes these Olympics well down the medal tally. Nor will it be a surprise if the AOC cites poor performance to demand more public money for Olympic sports.
“We have led the way and punched above our weight with commonwealth investment in the Australian Institute of Sport,” she says. “We have now seen other countries catch up and the task I have before me is where do we next innovate? It is not just about more money in a system that is not doing very much.
“I would expect that the AOC would always ask for more money. They have made that very clear over many, many decades. What I am interested in is a system that actually achieves results.”
Mr Coates and the AOC have not been getting much support at all for his demands for more money!!, and now he is putting in a gold medal performance in back pedalling!!!
The finger-pointing has started. Coates blames the swim team and applauds a review led by former head coach Bill Sweetenham and retired swimming legend Susie O’Neill.
“We are disappointed in the totality (of medals won), but you have to break it down and that identifies, principally, swimming,” he said. “If swimming was 20 but not 15 (medals) and they had won the four gold we did last time, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
(Australia didn’t claim 15 medals but 10 in the pool at these Games).
Kevan Gosper, Australia’s senior representative on the IOC, doesn’t blame the swimmers but the hand that feeds them, claiming a lack of funding is the “difference between gold and silver”.
Asked if funding was an issue, Coates was dismissive.
“No,” he said.
Whatsoever?
“No.”
At the annual meeting in April, Coates had told the room: “The AOC is providing funding of $15.3 million to prepare our athletes and $15.4 million to send the team to the London Games. But the reality is we are being out-funded by the other nations and face a massive challenge at the London Games.”
Reminded of that remark, Coates said: “We did say we’re not whingeing about funding and we now have enough funding. But in my AGM speech I absolutely nailed that we received the funding and we’re happy with that. And we don’t allocate the money. The AOC does not receive government money. We agitate, we lobby for increased funding for the national federations. They are accountable to the Australia Sports Commission and the AIS. We give them some funding for international competition, we give the athletes funding direct for medals. It’s not our money that they’re spending.”
Some believe Coates has back-pedalled on his stance about funding in fear it will be cut. As for Gosper’s remarks, Coates says this: “That’s Kevin’s take on it. He’s a senior IOC member and that’s his take. My position and the AOC’s position is that it’s not an issue of funding.”
Federal Minister for Sport Kate Lundy has been telling everyone in London that silver isn’t the new black but the new gold. “The Aussies silver lining tells an amazing story of excellence and effort,” she gushed two days ago.
There is growing belief within the Australian team that the media has been too tough, even though Laurie Lawrence tells every athlete in every impassioned motivational speech that “anything but gold isn’t good enough”.
And Coates wins gold for Australia in the triple reverse backflip!!
However, at London 2012, there is unlikely to be a moment more utterly gobsmacking than the Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates declaring the key to an improved performance by Australia was to make sport compulsory in school, and to thus increase participation rates.
The federal government has treated expenditure on Olympic sports mostly as an expensive photo opportunity.
What made Coates’s comment so jaw-dropping was it involved a backflip that, on the gymnastics mat, would have scored a perfect 10. This was the same John Coates whose organisation seemingly exercised every political muscle in its successful attempt to bury the findings of the Crawford Report into government sports funding – a report that, among many sensible suggestions, strongly advocated the restoration of physical education in schools.This was the John Coates who was dragged before that inquiry, despite the quasi-diplomatic immunity claimed by International Olympic Committee grandees during their luxurious jaunts across the planet.
Advertisement The same man whose organisation either cannot, or will not, justify the benefits its generous funding provides the broader community, beyond spurious notions such as the Olympic ”feelgood factor”, ”international prestige” and the chest-beating contests with other nations similarly obsessed with the medals table.
The man whose organisation eventually delivered a 229-page submission to that inquiry that was little more than a longwinded and costly wish list on behalf of elite performers. The AOC’s untested, perhaps even self-deluded, claims about its impact on grassroots sports were echoed in London by the Australian team’s deputy chef de mission Kitty Chiller. In defending Australia’s performance, Chiller said: ”There’s thousands of kids running around the backyard because of Cathy Freeman. Thousands on a bike because of Cadel Evans.”
Yet, what little research has been done – none of it by the AOC – suggests the Olympics have no significant impact on participation rates, beyond short-lived spikes in attendance at programs such as Little Athletics. Indeed, one study by the Australian centre for Olympic studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, showed that participation by people aged 15-plus in 14 out of 21 Olympic sports decreased after the Sydney Olympics.
One of the key recommendations of the Crawford Report was to empower individual Olympic sports, and to make them more responsible for their own administration. An eminently sensible conclusion given many of what are, between Olympics, minor sports are run like corner shops compared with the standards achieved by the major football codes.
But with elite athletes catered for in national and state institutes, and funding for Olympic sports guaranteed under the protective umbrella of the AOC and the Australian Sports Commission, there is little motivation for the administrators of marginal sports to improve those standards. For too many, marching in a blazer behind the national flag at the opening ceremony has been the objective, not merely a benefit.
As well-meaning and hard-working as many administrators might be, their sports are ill-equipped to recruit and nurture young athletes. Thus, the chance to broaden participation – with the benefit of improved public health and a larger pool from which to identify elite performers – has been lost.
Apart from some tinkering with the ASC administration, through which Olympic funding is channelled, the Crawford Report was torpedoed. It was a victim of the AOC’s aggressive, self-protective lobbying, and opportunistic politicians; the type who can stare down a foreign despot, yet – as the soccer World Cup bid fiasco also proved – go weak at the knees at the sight of a green and yellow tracksuit.
Indeed, for its impertinence – Coates grandiosely referred to the Crawford Report as ”well-meaning” – the AOC was rewarded with a generous funding increase, taking to $170 million the amount spent on elite athletes by the federal Government each year. Without anything so inconvenient as a cost-benefit analysis required.
LONDON, Aug 12, 2012 (AFP) – – A lack of funding was not behind Australia’s below par London Games performances, rather some sports had to take a serious look at themselves, Australian Olympic boss John Coates said Sunday.
Australia slipped to 10th on the medal standings from sixth in Beijing four years ago and will come away from London with seven golds, half of what the team achieved in Beijing.
As recriminations continue over Australia’s overall performance, Australian Olympic Committee president Coates said money wasn’t the problem, but that some sports administrators had allowed things to drift in the lead-up to London.
“I am absolutely certain that the sports have to look at themselves, rather than look for more money,” Coates told a press debriefing here.
“They are largely being very, very well funded by the (government-backed) Australian Sports Commission and with that comes responsibilities of delivering.”
Coates said he had written to presidents or chief executives of Australia’s Olympic sports before the Games expressing his concerns.
“I was concerned, about 18 months out from these Games, whether the sports themselves — the presidents and the executives of the sports — were taking enough ownership of the objectives that they had set,” he said.
“And it may be fair for them to rely on very good high performance managers but, and I’m not going to be specific here, but it has to come from the top.
“Any corporation is only as good as its CEO or chairman and the direction that is coming from there.”
The AOC had projected Australia winning 35 medals in London, which is what the total the team collected, but they were well down on the predicted 15 gold medals based on international results.
Australia came away from Beijing with 45 medals, including 14 gold.
Coates pointed his finger at swimming for the fall-off in gold medals.
“The significant difference …between these results and the results in Beijing is swimming,” Coates said.
“In Beijing it contributed 20 of the 46 medals there and they contributed 10 here.
“It must be possible for us to get back to where we were in swimming … if we can better coordinate it, better utilise sports science, and ensure our coaches are thoroughly up to date, it’s possible.”
Swimming Australia has announced a review into its team’s disappointing haul of one gold, six silver and three bronze in the pool in London — their lowest tally since Barcelona in 1992.
Not a bad effort of Olympic Gold Medal Back Pedalling – is it!!
Lets just put all those comments into one cohesive hypocritical, U-turning, back pedalling perspective and look at them again?
THE Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, has been calling for more taxpayer funding of elite sports at the same time as his organisation sits atop $100 million in funds, financial accounts show.
Besides being president of the AOC, for which he is paid $482,000 a year, Mr Coates is chairman of the foundation.
In November, he said Australia’s London Olympics medal tally would be reduced because state sports institutes were not getting enough money.
He had previously dismissed as ”insulting” a 2009 government report calling for money to be diverted to grassroots sports. And he returned to the theme last week, saying a flood of money for swimming approved in 2010 came too late to salvage Olympic gold at London.
Reminded of that remark, Coates said: “We did say we’re not whingeing about funding and we now have enough funding. But in my AGM speech I absolutely nailed that we received the funding and we’re happy with that. And we don’t allocate the money. The AOC does not receive government money. We agitate, we lobby for increased funding for the national federations. They are accountable to the Australia Sports Commission and the AIS. We give them some funding for international competition, we give the athletes funding direct for medals. It’s not our money that they’re spending.”
Kevan Gosper, Australia’s senior representative on the IOC, doesn’t blame the swimmers but the hand that feeds them, claiming a lack of funding is the “difference between gold and silver”.
Some believe Coates has back-pedalled on his stance about funding in fear it will be cut. As for Gosper’s remarks, Coates says this: “That’s Kevin’s take on it. He’s a senior IOC member and that’s his take. My position and the AOC’s position is that it’s not an issue of funding.”
As recriminations continue over Australia’s overall performance, Australian Olympic Committee president Coates said money wasn’t the problem, but that some sports administrators had allowed things to drift in the lead-up to London.
“I am absolutely certain that the sports have to look at themselves, rather than look for more money,” Coates told a press debriefing here.
“They are largely being very, very well funded by the (government-backed) Australian Sports Commission and with that comes responsibilities of delivering.”
Coates said he had written to presidents or chief executives of Australia’s Olympic sports before the Games expressing his concerns.
“I was concerned, about 18 months out from these Games, whether the sports themselves — the presidents and the executives of the sports — were taking enough ownership of the objectives that they had set,” he said.
“And it may be fair for them to rely on very good high performance managers but, and I’m not going to be specific here, but it has to come from the top.
“Any corporation is only as good as its CEO or chairman and the direction that is coming from there.”
I suspect Mr Coates was told in no un-certain terms by the Government, Media and public polls and responses to get his hand out of our pockets!!!, and stop trying to push Australian expectations in matching the performances of much richer and larger countries by trying to outspend them.
And of course all the while getting paid very well himself and hoarding a $100M of taxpayer’s previous funding! How rich is that!!!
Congratulations to the UK for a successful games without trouble, and host nation performance, just avoid being sucked into spending more and more to fund “elite sports” winning “gold” medals once every 4 years “over all else”.
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonFor those of you still interested in the Olympics from an Australian perspective (or at least mine) and here is an update of the situation described above of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) sitting on $100M and blaming the less than expected Australian Olympic result on a lack of government funding even though its at record levels!! (these people are living in a fools paradise!)
heres some more of the story unfolding.
IT was the meeting where Australia’s Olympic boss John Coates laid bare his views on winning medals, public money for sport and the fate that awaited any government which denied him either.
Three months after the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, where Australia had performed extraordinarily well to finish sixth on the medal tally behind much larger nations, Coates came face to face with the four members of a government-commissioned panel charged with conducting a review of Australian sport. The setting was a non-descript Sydney office belonging to the Department of Health. The mood was tense.
Coates said Australia’s goal for the London Games was to win 55 medals, that anything less would be seen as failure and that Olympic sports needed more money to achieve this goal. Sam Mostyn, a company director prominent in sports administration as an AFL commissioner, asked Coates whether there was any limit on what Australia should be prepared to do to maintain its place in the Olympic pecking order.
The president of the Australian Olympic Committee prickled at the question. Of course there was no limit. He went further. No Australian prime minister wanted to be the national leader who had to explain why our athletes were winning fewer medals, Coates said. Any government that tried to reduce funding for Olympic sports would be reminded of the disaster of Montreal.
Coates made one further remark which stuck in the minds of the panel members who would subsequently produce the 357-page Crawford report. The AOC was answerable to no government in Australia. Its sole master was the Olympic movement.
A year later, when the Crawford report was published, it provoked a savage response. Coates publicly accused its authors of insulting Australian Olympians, returning to the “White Australia days” by promoting Anglo-centric sports and condemning to mediocrity our performance at future Games.
He accused the sports minister who released the report, Kate Ellis, of vacating the subsequent debate, while praising Kevin Rudd as a prime minister who understood the Games and the importance of sports performance to Australia’s international standing. Behind the scenes, AOC lawyers filed Freedom of Information requests investigating the way the panel had been appointed and possible conflicts of interests by David Crawford, a retired company director and chairman who had established the governance model for the AFL, Football Federation Australia and Cricket Australia, and his fellow panel members; Mostyn, former Hockey Australia president and Australian Sports Commission director Pam Tye and Colin Carter, a business consultant and former AFL commissioner.
The panel members received legal letters from the AOC suggesting their findings and public comments had damaged the reputation of the Olympic movement. Gemba, an independent sports consultancy commissioned to provide data to the Crawford panel, was also subject to AOC legal action.
Coates this week declined to answer questions from The Weekend Australian about the AOC’s campaign against the Crawford report. An AOC spokesman said it was “premature” to draw implications from the London medal count.
The Crawford panel’s suggestion that Australia should set “realistic” medal targets at Olympics, rather than the top-five medal tally place Coates cited in demanding an extra $109 million a year in taxpayer money for sport, prompted a withering reply from Coates. “We were fourth in Sydney, we were fourth in Athens, sixth in Beijing.” he said at the release of the report. “Now that he is telling us that eighth is good enough, maybe 10th will satisfy Mr Crawford?”
Coates may have to settle for a place well below that, if Australia’s position on the medal tally at the midpoint of the London Olympics is any guide. Last night, Australia was in 16th place. At the corresponding point of the Sydney, Athens and Beijing Olympics, Australia was placed second, fourth and seventh.
Crawford’s point was not about medal tallies and where Australia should rank against other nations at the Games. Rather, the report argued medal counts were a dubious measure of what a modern nation should aim to get out of sport. It advocated a shift in funding bias away from the Olympics and towards the sports most Australians play and identify with, and a greater emphasis on participation and less on elite performance.
What Coates saw as a threat to Australia’s global sporting prestige now reads as a sensible, sober reflection on the events of this week. Peter Bartels, a former chairman of the Australian Sports Commission, yesterday urged the federal government to revisit Crawford’s findings in London’s wake. “It certainly needs to be reassessed in light of what has happened since it was delivered,” he told The Weekend Australia.
Bartels says it is the ASC, rather than the AOC, that is responsible for public funding and performance of Australian athletes and a lack of leadership within the organisation since Beijing has cruelled its ability to perform this role. Since Bartels stood down four years ago after 10 years as chairman, the ASC has had a chairman, two acting chairmen and three chief executives. “That is not a good basis for stability,” he says.
He believes tough decisions need to be made about the funding of future Olympic teams, arguing the Australian Institute of Sport is warehousing too many established athletes with no medal prospects and the money would be better spent discovering and developing younger talent.
“We need to sharpen the focus of the AIS,” he says. “We need a heavy cull and funds redirected towards talent identification, sports potential and coaching. The future needs more strategic direction, not necessarily more money.”
As an aside, the former national track cyclist also had a message for any Olympians who saw their place at the Games, and even medals, as an entitlement. “I am disturbed at the the demeanour of a number of athletes representing Australia,” he says. “The outstanding role model for me at the moment in international sport is Bradley Wiggins. He is understated, he is overachieving and he is not asking anybody for much. He has got a degree of humility about him.”
Former Athletics Australia chief executive Danny Corcoran, one of the few senior Olympic sport administrators prepared to endorse the Crawford report at the time it was released, yesterday backed Bartels’ call for government to reconsider it and devote more attention to supporting coaches and junior athletes.
Coates won the initial battle against the Crawford report. The government did not champion the report or its findings and after a fierce, six-month lobbying campaign, the AOC secured a further $195m over four years out of the 2010 federal budget. The low-hanging fruit within Crawford’s recommendations was picked by Ellis and her successor Mark Arbib. The most difficult and important reforms to Australia’s sporting system — spilling all positions at the ASC and divesting its control over the AIS and state-based sports institutes — were shelved.
More significantly for Coates, the primacy of the Olympics remains unchanged.
Federal Sport Minister Kate Lundy agrees the Crawford report should be reconsidered as part of the post-London assessment of Australia’s elite sports performance, along with any lessons that can be learned from how comparable nations fund their sport.
Speaking to The Weekend Australian from London, the former rower says a strength of the Crawford report is its focus on grassroots sport and participation. She believes a weakness in the report is the lack of weight it attached to the role of the Olympics and other major championships in motivating participation in sport and shaping our national identity.
“The only part of the equation that I don’t think emerged in the Crawford report was how we project ourselves internationally on things like the medal count,” Lundy says. “Because it is the thing that everyone quantifies, it does become a test of a nation’s sporting prowess, whether we like it or not. For Australia, it is not just how that inspires people to play sport. It is how we look out into the world and what opportunities are derived from that.”
Lundy says there will be no “panicked response” if Australia finishes these Olympics well down the medal tally. Nor will it be a surprise if the AOC cites poor performance to demand more public money for Olympic sports.
“We have led the way and punched above our weight with commonwealth investment in the Australian Institute of Sport,” she says. “We have now seen other countries catch up and the task I have before me is where do we next innovate? It is not just about more money in a system that is not doing very much.
“I would expect that the AOC would always ask for more money. They have made that very clear over many, many decades. What I am interested in is a system that actually achieves results.”
Mr Coates and the AOC have not been getting much support at all for his demands for more money!!, and now he is putting in a gold medal performance in back pedalling!!!
The finger-pointing has started. Coates blames the swim team and applauds a review led by former head coach Bill Sweetenham and retired swimming legend Susie O’Neill.
“We are disappointed in the totality (of medals won), but you have to break it down and that identifies, principally, swimming,” he said. “If swimming was 20 but not 15 (medals) and they had won the four gold we did last time, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
(Australia didn’t claim 15 medals but 10 in the pool at these Games).
Kevan Gosper, Australia’s senior representative on the IOC, doesn’t blame the swimmers but the hand that feeds them, claiming a lack of funding is the “difference between gold and silver”.
Asked if funding was an issue, Coates was dismissive.
“No,” he said.
Whatsoever?
“No.”
At the annual meeting in April, Coates had told the room: “The AOC is providing funding of $15.3 million to prepare our athletes and $15.4 million to send the team to the London Games. But the reality is we are being out-funded by the other nations and face a massive challenge at the London Games.”
Reminded of that remark, Coates said: “We did say we’re not whingeing about funding and we now have enough funding. But in my AGM speech I absolutely nailed that we received the funding and we’re happy with that. And we don’t allocate the money. The AOC does not receive government money. We agitate, we lobby for increased funding for the national federations. They are accountable to the Australia Sports Commission and the AIS. We give them some funding for international competition, we give the athletes funding direct for medals. It’s not our money that they’re spending.”
Some believe Coates has back-pedalled on his stance about funding in fear it will be cut. As for Gosper’s remarks, Coates says this: “That’s Kevin’s take on it. He’s a senior IOC member and that’s his take. My position and the AOC’s position is that it’s not an issue of funding.”
Federal Minister for Sport Kate Lundy has been telling everyone in London that silver isn’t the new black but the new gold. “The Aussies silver lining tells an amazing story of excellence and effort,” she gushed two days ago.
There is growing belief within the Australian team that the media has been too tough, even though Laurie Lawrence tells every athlete in every impassioned motivational speech that “anything but gold isn’t good enough”.
And Coates wins gold for Australia in the triple reverse backflip!!
However, at London 2012, there is unlikely to be a moment more utterly gobsmacking than the Australian Olympic Committee president John Coates declaring the key to an improved performance by Australia was to make sport compulsory in school, and to thus increase participation rates.
The federal government has treated expenditure on Olympic sports mostly as an expensive photo opportunity.
What made Coates’s comment so jaw-dropping was it involved a backflip that, on the gymnastics mat, would have scored a perfect 10. This was the same John Coates whose organisation seemingly exercised every political muscle in its successful attempt to bury the findings of the Crawford Report into government sports funding – a report that, among many sensible suggestions, strongly advocated the restoration of physical education in schools.This was the John Coates who was dragged before that inquiry, despite the quasi-diplomatic immunity claimed by International Olympic Committee grandees during their luxurious jaunts across the planet.
Advertisement The same man whose organisation either cannot, or will not, justify the benefits its generous funding provides the broader community, beyond spurious notions such as the Olympic ”feelgood factor”, ”international prestige” and the chest-beating contests with other nations similarly obsessed with the medals table.
The man whose organisation eventually delivered a 229-page submission to that inquiry that was little more than a longwinded and costly wish list on behalf of elite performers. The AOC’s untested, perhaps even self-deluded, claims about its impact on grassroots sports were echoed in London by the Australian team’s deputy chef de mission Kitty Chiller. In defending Australia’s performance, Chiller said: ”There’s thousands of kids running around the backyard because of Cathy Freeman. Thousands on a bike because of Cadel Evans.”
Yet, what little research has been done – none of it by the AOC – suggests the Olympics have no significant impact on participation rates, beyond short-lived spikes in attendance at programs such as Little Athletics. Indeed, one study by the Australian centre for Olympic studies at the University of Technology, Sydney, showed that participation by people aged 15-plus in 14 out of 21 Olympic sports decreased after the Sydney Olympics.
One of the key recommendations of the Crawford Report was to empower individual Olympic sports, and to make them more responsible for their own administration. An eminently sensible conclusion given many of what are, between Olympics, minor sports are run like corner shops compared with the standards achieved by the major football codes.
But with elite athletes catered for in national and state institutes, and funding for Olympic sports guaranteed under the protective umbrella of the AOC and the Australian Sports Commission, there is little motivation for the administrators of marginal sports to improve those standards. For too many, marching in a blazer behind the national flag at the opening ceremony has been the objective, not merely a benefit.
As well-meaning and hard-working as many administrators might be, their sports are ill-equipped to recruit and nurture young athletes. Thus, the chance to broaden participation – with the benefit of improved public health and a larger pool from which to identify elite performers – has been lost.
Apart from some tinkering with the ASC administration, through which Olympic funding is channelled, the Crawford Report was torpedoed. It was a victim of the AOC’s aggressive, self-protective lobbying, and opportunistic politicians; the type who can stare down a foreign despot, yet – as the soccer World Cup bid fiasco also proved – go weak at the knees at the sight of a green and yellow tracksuit.
Indeed, for its impertinence – Coates grandiosely referred to the Crawford Report as ”well-meaning” – the AOC was rewarded with a generous funding increase, taking to $170 million the amount spent on elite athletes by the federal Government each year. Without anything so inconvenient as a cost-benefit analysis required.
LONDON, Aug 12, 2012 (AFP) – – A lack of funding was not behind Australia’s below par London Games performances, rather some sports had to take a serious look at themselves, Australian Olympic boss John Coates said Sunday.
Australia slipped to 10th on the medal standings from sixth in Beijing four years ago and will come away from London with seven golds, half of what the team achieved in Beijing.
As recriminations continue over Australia’s overall performance, Australian Olympic Committee president Coates said money wasn’t the problem, but that some sports administrators had allowed things to drift in the lead-up to London.
“I am absolutely certain that the sports have to look at themselves, rather than look for more money,” Coates told a press debriefing here.
“They are largely being very, very well funded by the (government-backed) Australian Sports Commission and with that comes responsibilities of delivering.”
Coates said he had written to presidents or chief executives of Australia’s Olympic sports before the Games expressing his concerns.
“I was concerned, about 18 months out from these Games, whether the sports themselves — the presidents and the executives of the sports — were taking enough ownership of the objectives that they had set,” he said.
“And it may be fair for them to rely on very good high performance managers but, and I’m not going to be specific here, but it has to come from the top.
“Any corporation is only as good as its CEO or chairman and the direction that is coming from there.”
The AOC had projected Australia winning 35 medals in London, which is what the total the team collected, but they were well down on the predicted 15 gold medals based on international results.
Australia came away from Beijing with 45 medals, including 14 gold.
Coates pointed his finger at swimming for the fall-off in gold medals.
“The significant difference …between these results and the results in Beijing is swimming,” Coates said.
“In Beijing it contributed 20 of the 46 medals there and they contributed 10 here.
“It must be possible for us to get back to where we were in swimming … if we can better coordinate it, better utilise sports science, and ensure our coaches are thoroughly up to date, it’s possible.”
Swimming Australia has announced a review into its team’s disappointing haul of one gold, six silver and three bronze in the pool in London — their lowest tally since Barcelona in 1992.
Not a bad effort of Olympic Gold Medal Back Pedalling – is it!!
Lets just put all those comments into one cohesive hypocritical, U-turning, back pedalling perspective and look at them again?
THE Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, has been calling for more taxpayer funding of elite sports at the same time as his organisation sits atop $100 million in funds, financial accounts show.
Besides being president of the AOC, for which he is paid $482,000 a year, Mr Coates is chairman of the foundation.
In November, he said Australia’s London Olympics medal tally would be reduced because state sports institutes were not getting enough money.
He had previously dismissed as ”insulting” a 2009 government report calling for money to be diverted to grassroots sports. And he returned to the theme last week, saying a flood of money for swimming approved in 2010 came too late to salvage Olympic gold at London.
Reminded of that remark, Coates said: “We did say we’re not whingeing about funding and we now have enough funding. But in my AGM speech I absolutely nailed that we received the funding and we’re happy with that. And we don’t allocate the money. The AOC does not receive government money. We agitate, we lobby for increased funding for the national federations. They are accountable to the Australia Sports Commission and the AIS. We give them some funding for international competition, we give the athletes funding direct for medals. It’s not our money that they’re spending.”
Kevan Gosper, Australia’s senior representative on the IOC, doesn’t blame the swimmers but the hand that feeds them, claiming a lack of funding is the “difference between gold and silver”.
Some believe Coates has back-pedalled on his stance about funding in fear it will be cut. As for Gosper’s remarks, Coates says this: “That’s Kevin’s take on it. He’s a senior IOC member and that’s his take. My position and the AOC’s position is that it’s not an issue of funding.”
As recriminations continue over Australia’s overall performance, Australian Olympic Committee president Coates said money wasn’t the problem, but that some sports administrators had allowed things to drift in the lead-up to London.
“I am absolutely certain that the sports have to look at themselves, rather than look for more money,” Coates told a press debriefing here.
“They are largely being very, very well funded by the (government-backed) Australian Sports Commission and with that comes responsibilities of delivering.”
Coates said he had written to presidents or chief executives of Australia’s Olympic sports before the Games expressing his concerns.
“I was concerned, about 18 months out from these Games, whether the sports themselves — the presidents and the executives of the sports — were taking enough ownership of the objectives that they had set,” he said.
“And it may be fair for them to rely on very good high performance managers but, and I’m not going to be specific here, but it has to come from the top.
“Any corporation is only as good as its CEO or chairman and the direction that is coming from there.”
I suspect Mr Coates was told in no un-certain terms by the Government, Media and public polls and responses to get his hand out of our pockets!!!, and stop trying to push Australian expectations in matching the performances of much richer and larger countries by trying to outspend them.
And of course all the while getting paid very well himself and hoarding a $100M of taxpayer’s previous funding! How rich is that!!!
Congratulations to the UK for a successful games without trouble, and host nation performance, just avoid being sucked into spending more and more to fund “elite sports” winning “gold” medals once every 4 years “over all else”.
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonsmiles,
I hadnt considered the thought the reference to moans and groans and not mentioning a subject might somehow relate to the Olympics? but I can now see how that might be assumed.
However Australia’s performance or lack of it in London is not causing me to moan or groan, or have sleepless nights, and it was a topic and debate elsewhere in the forum and the habit of people entering the debate to dissuade the debate, rather than simply ignoring it?
However given that mis-understanding of my intention, and the fact that this thread was moved to general discussion I will offer the following even though I note there are other Olympic related threads existing.
Interestingly the Olympics have made me moan and groan for the best part of 50 years, with dread of that two weeks every 4 years when suddenly everyone wants to talk about athletics and swimming, and every newspaper and TV channel had special and exclusive coverage!, and even all the subjects in school took on an Olympic flavour.
So as I’m not particularly interested in them, and simply ignore them, and I try hard to avoid the coverage like the plague for those two weeks every four years, and the internet has been a godsend since I no longer get the paper delivered or watch free to air TV, and therefore can choose to read or see it as little or as much as I might.
Not all Australian’s are sports fanatics, despite the stereotype portrayed or presented on home and away etc, and in many cases other than perhaps following the local football code, or cricket series when they are in Australia, most Australian’s have no interest in Athletes or Swimming until its forced fed to us via the media for their own bottom line benefits.
But I do know a little of the topic, and Australia has for a number of years punched above its weight as our Government has poured more and more taxpayer cash into elite sports to win more medals and define Australian success and values by gold at the Olympics.
I personally think Australia should be achieving a medal tally reflecting its developed economy and population size, and beyond that should be down to the flukes of individual talents or upsets in a result, and expectations or investments to achieve more than that are misplaced and misguided.
But apparantly we had a bad result in the Montreal Olympics and the Government of the day flooded money into the AOC and Elite Sports to improve the result in subsequent years.
The Olympic industry in Australia has continued the calls for greater and greater funding every 4 years, and in fact the current medal failure is simply resulting in even more calls for funding.
We have apparantly imported Althetes from overseas, with fast tracked citizenships, to have them win gold for “Australia”, and some have then moved on to other nations when they didnt qualify into our teams, not so patriotic citizens giving their best for their country, but more like mercenaries for hire, or ships flying flags of convenience.
I would rather see us invest in school level sports, and if that yields a gold medal winner, thats great, but I dont see any value in importing a gold medal winner, surely its not like a proffessional sporting team?
But these imported athletes are designed to evidence results for money, to justify more money, now we are seeing a change in tack, that lack of results will require even more money!! In some ways I view these arguments all as “Sborts Rorts”, and of course we had the scandal a few years ago of the Olympic bid rorts and bribes.
Any time big money gets into Sbort it becomes big business and no longer is about sport.
Australia apparantly spends $170M on our Olympic elite athletes, and its suggested a recent gold medal cost us $3M?
While I admire the Athletes for their talents and efforts, I dont really consider they are doing it for “me” or the “Nation”, I’m sure thats not what gets them up every day and working hard on their skills, and I dont begrudge their sponsorships etc as they gain fame etc, but I dont really need our Government to spend even more over the next 4 years to “regain” Australia’s sporting crown, or what ever other patriotic heart strings will be used to get more money out of my pocket for something I dont value at all.
In Australia the big “Sborts and Yarts” Organisations (as presented by our Cultural Attache Sir Les Patterson) have a deathgrip on government funding, and things that interest me, like aviation heritage, or even a National Aviation Museum, get very little government funding or support.
Australia dramatically increased it Olympic funding prior to the Sydney Olympics, and its reasonable for a host country to try and maximise its performance but also to encourage and fund as many of its athletes to perform in front of the home ground audience, but there is no need to continue at those levels ongoing to try and maintain that batting average indefinately. So theres something for Great Britain to be wary of beyond the London Olympics.
Interestingly, our impoverished Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) is now claiming the current medal shortfall is due to a lack of government funding over the last 4 years, not because its gone down in real terms, but because it hasnt kept pace with other larger countries – (or counties too smiles).
This is in a reality of annual funding by the Australian Government of $170 Million a year, and astonishingly, when the AOC is sitting on $100M in investments arising from previous Australian Government Funding,(see quoted article below)
My view is if they needed more then they should have dipped into that $100M nest egg, and if they didnt need it, then the Australian Government could have reduced its funding by $50M per year and let the AOC use some of that previous surplus!!
Then that $50M a year might be spent on things that interest some other Australians, even a National Aviation Museum??
So congratulations to all those Athletes are delivered their personal bests, with medals resulting or not, and congratulations to the UK for doing well in the medal tally as the host nation, but be aware that medal counts dont become the focus.
In Australia, for me, that would be to build something lasting as a legacy to other Australians who achieved something for their country?, rather than funding the next reduction of a world or Olympic record by a fraction of a second? or Gold medal tally well above our relative population size?
Is there better things the UK could be spending money on at the moment?, I was surprised to hear of half empty stadiums in the first week, and that tourists were not visiting tourism attractions in anycase, and of course the arguments for hosting the Olympics that it will provide much needed sporting infratructure and bring in lots of tourist dollars, is another example of the Sborts Rorts.
Certainly beware they dont demand you up the investment in future years to ensure you ‘keep” winning gold medals.
regards
Mark Pilkington
THE Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, has been calling for more taxpayer funding of elite sports at the same time as his organisation sits atop $100 million in funds, financial accounts show.
The money, invested in shares and property funds by the related Australian Olympic Foundation, would be enough to fund at least 700 athletes to attend the nation’s top school for elite sportsmen and women, the Australian Institute of Sport, for five years.
Speaking from London, the head of the foundation’s investment committee, the former Liberal leader John Hewson, said it was ”absolutely” worthwhile investing the money rather than spending it.
”I have no doubt that this is the best structure, rather than spending the money as you raise it, because it’s very difficult to raise money these days for sports and charities,” he said.
Advertisement Besides being president of the AOC, for which he is paid $482,000 a year, Mr Coates is chairman of the foundation.
In November, he said Australia’s London Olympics medal tally would be reduced because state sports institutes were not getting enough money.
He had previously dismissed as ”insulting” a 2009 government report calling for money to be diverted to grassroots sports. And he returned to the theme last week, saying a flood of money for swimming approved in 2010 came too late to salvage Olympic gold at London.
The foundation was set up in 1996 but it began seriously investing after an $88.5 million injection following the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
After paying a $6.3 million cash distribution to the AOC, the fund had $106 million at the end of last year, down from $115 million the previous year.
The government spends about $170 million a year on elite athletes, with most of that focused on Olympic sports.
Almost $20 million a year of that goes to the Australian Institute of Sport to provide support to 1200 athletes, 700 of whom received full or part scholarships.
Dr Hewson is chairman of the committee that oversees the foundation’s investment strategy, which is heavily weighted towards shares and property assets that have been badly affected by the downturn in the United States and continuing economic turmoil in Europe.
However, Dr Hewson said: ”We’ve been able to fund them [the AOC] and increase the capital amount, even with the GFC and the Asian crisis.”
Since the Sydney Games, the foundation has paid cash distributions of $74 million to the AOC.
mark_pilkingtonsmiles,
I hadnt considered the thought the reference to moans and groans and not mentioning a subject might somehow relate to the Olympics? but I can now see how that might be assumed.
However Australia’s performance or lack of it in London is not causing me to moan or groan, or have sleepless nights, and it was a topic and debate elsewhere in the forum and the habit of people entering the debate to dissuade the debate, rather than simply ignoring it?
However given that mis-understanding of my intention, and the fact that this thread was moved to general discussion I will offer the following even though I note there are other Olympic related threads existing.
Interestingly the Olympics have made me moan and groan for the best part of 50 years, with dread of that two weeks every 4 years when suddenly everyone wants to talk about athletics and swimming, and every newspaper and TV channel had special and exclusive coverage!, and even all the subjects in school took on an Olympic flavour.
So as I’m not particularly interested in them, and simply ignore them, and I try hard to avoid the coverage like the plague for those two weeks every four years, and the internet has been a godsend since I no longer get the paper delivered or watch free to air TV, and therefore can choose to read or see it as little or as much as I might.
Not all Australian’s are sports fanatics, despite the stereotype portrayed or presented on home and away etc, and in many cases other than perhaps following the local football code, or cricket series when they are in Australia, most Australian’s have no interest in Athletes or Swimming until its forced fed to us via the media for their own bottom line benefits.
But I do know a little of the topic, and Australia has for a number of years punched above its weight as our Government has poured more and more taxpayer cash into elite sports to win more medals and define Australian success and values by gold at the Olympics.
I personally think Australia should be achieving a medal tally reflecting its developed economy and population size, and beyond that should be down to the flukes of individual talents or upsets in a result, and expectations or investments to achieve more than that are misplaced and misguided.
But apparantly we had a bad result in the Montreal Olympics and the Government of the day flooded money into the AOC and Elite Sports to improve the result in subsequent years.
The Olympic industry in Australia has continued the calls for greater and greater funding every 4 years, and in fact the current medal failure is simply resulting in even more calls for funding.
We have apparantly imported Althetes from overseas, with fast tracked citizenships, to have them win gold for “Australia”, and some have then moved on to other nations when they didnt qualify into our teams, not so patriotic citizens giving their best for their country, but more like mercenaries for hire, or ships flying flags of convenience.
I would rather see us invest in school level sports, and if that yields a gold medal winner, thats great, but I dont see any value in importing a gold medal winner, surely its not like a proffessional sporting team?
But these imported athletes are designed to evidence results for money, to justify more money, now we are seeing a change in tack, that lack of results will require even more money!! In some ways I view these arguments all as “Sborts Rorts”, and of course we had the scandal a few years ago of the Olympic bid rorts and bribes.
Any time big money gets into Sbort it becomes big business and no longer is about sport.
Australia apparantly spends $170M on our Olympic elite athletes, and its suggested a recent gold medal cost us $3M?
While I admire the Athletes for their talents and efforts, I dont really consider they are doing it for “me” or the “Nation”, I’m sure thats not what gets them up every day and working hard on their skills, and I dont begrudge their sponsorships etc as they gain fame etc, but I dont really need our Government to spend even more over the next 4 years to “regain” Australia’s sporting crown, or what ever other patriotic heart strings will be used to get more money out of my pocket for something I dont value at all.
In Australia the big “Sborts and Yarts” Organisations (as presented by our Cultural Attache Sir Les Patterson) have a deathgrip on government funding, and things that interest me, like aviation heritage, or even a National Aviation Museum, get very little government funding or support.
Australia dramatically increased it Olympic funding prior to the Sydney Olympics, and its reasonable for a host country to try and maximise its performance but also to encourage and fund as many of its athletes to perform in front of the home ground audience, but there is no need to continue at those levels ongoing to try and maintain that batting average indefinately. So theres something for Great Britain to be wary of beyond the London Olympics.
Interestingly, our impoverished Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) is now claiming the current medal shortfall is due to a lack of government funding over the last 4 years, not because its gone down in real terms, but because it hasnt kept pace with other larger countries – (or counties too smiles).
This is in a reality of annual funding by the Australian Government of $170 Million a year, and astonishingly, when the AOC is sitting on $100M in investments arising from previous Australian Government Funding,(see quoted article below)
My view is if they needed more then they should have dipped into that $100M nest egg, and if they didnt need it, then the Australian Government could have reduced its funding by $50M per year and let the AOC use some of that previous surplus!!
Then that $50M a year might be spent on things that interest some other Australians, even a National Aviation Museum??
So congratulations to all those Athletes are delivered their personal bests, with medals resulting or not, and congratulations to the UK for doing well in the medal tally as the host nation, but be aware that medal counts dont become the focus.
In Australia, for me, that would be to build something lasting as a legacy to other Australians who achieved something for their country?, rather than funding the next reduction of a world or Olympic record by a fraction of a second? or Gold medal tally well above our relative population size?
Is there better things the UK could be spending money on at the moment?, I was surprised to hear of half empty stadiums in the first week, and that tourists were not visiting tourism attractions in anycase, and of course the arguments for hosting the Olympics that it will provide much needed sporting infratructure and bring in lots of tourist dollars, is another example of the Sborts Rorts.
Certainly beware they dont demand you up the investment in future years to ensure you ‘keep” winning gold medals.
regards
Mark Pilkington
THE Australian Olympic Committee president, John Coates, has been calling for more taxpayer funding of elite sports at the same time as his organisation sits atop $100 million in funds, financial accounts show.
The money, invested in shares and property funds by the related Australian Olympic Foundation, would be enough to fund at least 700 athletes to attend the nation’s top school for elite sportsmen and women, the Australian Institute of Sport, for five years.
Speaking from London, the head of the foundation’s investment committee, the former Liberal leader John Hewson, said it was ”absolutely” worthwhile investing the money rather than spending it.
”I have no doubt that this is the best structure, rather than spending the money as you raise it, because it’s very difficult to raise money these days for sports and charities,” he said.
Advertisement Besides being president of the AOC, for which he is paid $482,000 a year, Mr Coates is chairman of the foundation.
In November, he said Australia’s London Olympics medal tally would be reduced because state sports institutes were not getting enough money.
He had previously dismissed as ”insulting” a 2009 government report calling for money to be diverted to grassroots sports. And he returned to the theme last week, saying a flood of money for swimming approved in 2010 came too late to salvage Olympic gold at London.
The foundation was set up in 1996 but it began seriously investing after an $88.5 million injection following the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
After paying a $6.3 million cash distribution to the AOC, the fund had $106 million at the end of last year, down from $115 million the previous year.
The government spends about $170 million a year on elite athletes, with most of that focused on Olympic sports.
Almost $20 million a year of that goes to the Australian Institute of Sport to provide support to 1200 athletes, 700 of whom received full or part scholarships.
Dr Hewson is chairman of the committee that oversees the foundation’s investment strategy, which is heavily weighted towards shares and property assets that have been badly affected by the downturn in the United States and continuing economic turmoil in Europe.
However, Dr Hewson said: ”We’ve been able to fund them [the AOC] and increase the capital amount, even with the GFC and the Asian crisis.”
Since the Sydney Games, the foundation has paid cash distributions of $74 million to the AOC.
mark_pilkingtonNot quite sure I understand your response to my suggestion that the CAA would be keen to ensure its built as the type its serial number accords with. I am simply stating that if they register a night-fighter NF.36 then it would be sensible to re-build it as such – keeps the CAA and the punters happy!
I’m not taking issue with Mark’s general point that registration of an NF-36 identity would seem to yield the simpliest path if it was “restored” as such, and am simply using Mark’s quote and reply to others above as an appropriate point to comment on the interesting CAA airworthiness/registration elements that seemly sit behind this issue.
Much is made of the fact that the UK doesnt have an Experimental or Restricted category of airworthiness registration, and that heavily modified or reproduction aircraft could not be registered there, (or be recognised as such?).
Yet there are apparantly a number of CAA registered aircraft restored in the UK away from their own constructed serial number configurations?
As I understand it there are modifications of low back Spitfires to high back, and single seat spitfires to dual seat, not just simply through fitment of a jump seat in place of redundant military radios or fuel tanks to maintain the same C of G balance, but creation a full rear cockpit and relocation of the existing cockpit forward in line with the TR9 design, all at odds with how those particular serial numbered airframes rolled out of the factory?
Yet these seemly run the gauntlet of the CAA and survive the experience?
As was pointed out above, a Canadian built Bolingbroke (Blenheim IV) is having a Blenheim mark I nose fitted for airworthy operation?
These would all seem to be no different from registering an NF-36 Mosquito identity for “restoration”, and then “restoring” it with alternative nose domes or other features?, assuming that those are all based on the standard designs and equipment of other earlier marks of the type? so that the finished product is still aerodynamically and structurally true to the manufacturer’s design for that particular presented mark?
In anycase surely that is something for the project’s engineering managers to simply explore with the CAA?
Either it can be done, or it cant, and assuming all the real limitations to the project in terms of funding, parts and expertise/workshop resources are all overcome, then they can either build an accurate NF-36 reproduction, or use its identity and starter kit of parts to reproduce a wartime recreation, or are simply forced to “adopt” another identity to back fit an “outcome” to a “recreated” identity.
Without opening the can of worms of “data plate reproductions”, there doesnt seem to be a legislated or regulated definition of “how much” of an identity or cache of original airworthy parts you have to start with – to claim to be “restoring it”, the issue more seems to what you “call the process” of delivering the finished product? (ie “restoration” as against “reproduction” / “recreation”)
Surely the NF-36 remains could simply be presented as being a spares source of common parts for the “restoration”, and an original wartime control column or instrument panel, or undercarriage leg etc from an FB VI, along with a pile of drawings and rotten metal parts and timber patterns remains from a donor NF-36 could be presented as the basis of the FBVI identity and “restoration” of it as a wartime example?
Perhaps a badly damaged FBVI makers plate can be sourced on Ebay smiles, even if it – itself is too badly damaged to be used, and needs to be replaced with a new build replacement?
(It seems to work for others – smiles)
If the punters really want an accurate NF-36 surely they will donate strongly for that outcome, if they simply want a flying Mosquito and the NF-36 identity is a means of delivering that, even if not completed as an accurate representation of that mark, then punters will still probably be happy enough to donate.
Of course we all apparantly ascribe to the views that the owner/restorer can do what he (or they) chooses in terms of paint schemes, and in providing transparency of the restoration process and true provenance of the aircraft identity, or otherwise.
Many have pointed out that its incorrect to apply museum and heritage standards and practices to flying aircraft.
Clearly a “compromised” outcome could still be modified back to accurate NF-36 should it ever stop flying and need to find its role as an accurate (if not authentic) museum static example of an NF-36?
The proposal to recreate a flying Mosquito in the UK is a project worthy of support and evaluation and it seems it will need to scrape the barrell for parts, identity, and wide spread support of its outcome, unless one of the existing museum static airframes or current NZ restorations can be acquired instead. (and that seems highly unlikely)
I dont support previous suggestions it should be “made in metal”, but dont see any problem in using an NF-36 identity and partial remains as a way of legitimising an airworthy project to progress forward, even if the outcome is not finished and presented as an accurate NF-36?
The Mosquito is in my mind, one of Britains most impressive aircraft developments of WW2, and it is a pity its not able to be still seen in the sky in Britain, if this project can marshall sufficient funding, parts and expertise to deliver one, the accuracy of its finish to its claimed identity would seem a minor issue to resolve.
I would be happy to see a flying Mosquito with a fighter or radar nose, and in wartime or postwar colours.
Against the costs and work required to get there, it seems a minor issue, and subject to an access to ongoing funds, it could be changed from season to season in any case?, should the project get that far?
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonDo you know what the worst thing would be for TIGHAR? If they actually found Earhart, they would be broke within a fortnight…..Bruce
[B]Knifeedgeturn[/BThere is a lot of useful info on the TIGHAR site. It’s a pity they seem transfixed with the Nikumaroro conclusion.
If you take a sighting of the sun as it rises at 6am and then draw an LOP 157/377 line between the two comments above, I think you end up exactly where Tigger’s theory of exploration comes from, and will now fully understand and agree the logic of their efforts, and therefore should have absolute confidence in the expected outcomes of their ongoing exploration.
Smiles
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonI believe the plan is to sell it in a year or two, so get out your chequebooks!
Hopefully David Lowry and Temora is aware of that possibility and has it on their shopping list, as it would make an excellent addition to their wartime collection and the only airworthy Anson mark I would sit very nicely along side the only airworthy Hudson as two important types that played important roles is defending Australia in the early part of the war, and fitting given at least the fuselage served with the RAAF during the war.
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkington.
Adding to my 1934 air race collection, I have just received delivery of this original race program from the start at Mildenhall, purchased off evilbay
Smiles
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonMark P,
Don’t forget that Edgar Percival was an Aussie, even if he did spend a lot of time in the UK…! In the 1930’s, Percival was producing what were probably the best light civil aircraft in the world. 🙂
Harry Hawker was an aussie too, and others such as the Smith Brothers, Hinkler, Kingsford Smith and Ulm played major roles in the trailblazing days and Australia did punch above its weight in those days, but I do think the UK takes the prize.
regards
Mark Pilkington
mark_pilkingtonEbay quite often has original de Havilland engine manuals come up for the Gipsy Six, Queen II, Queen III and Queen 70’s, and all of those are available on ebay on CD virtually all the time in anycase.
Both versions have large drawings etc that will be more than adequate for working on and re-assembling an old engine as against casting up one from scratch.
regards
Mark Pilkington
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