The RAF has eight, two-men bobsleigh teams and their sleds entered in the annual competition in Austria, where they hope to become British bobsleigh champions. The thrilling extreme sport will see the teams compete at speed to achieve the fastest time at the famous Innsbruck-Igls Olympic bobsleigh, luge and skeleton track.
Until recently, one of the teams’ sleds had been out of commission following an impact that damaged its left bale, or wing at the front of the sled. That is until RAF Bobsleigh Team manager Cpl Ross Brown met AMRC Composite Centre development engineer Craig Atkins.
Explains Cpl Brown: “We were keen to see if working together would be of benefit and to create partnerships with British organisations that may be able to help us further the sport. So we took along three of our different sleds and were delighted the AMRC agreed to assess the various ways the damaged sled could be improved and carry out the substantial repair work it needed to get it back into service.”
Atkins gave AMRC Composite technician Josh Oxley the task of repairing the sled. He cut away the section of the sled bale finding numerous old repairs, so putting the skills and techniques he has learnt into practice, he engineered a new bale section from CFRP:
Says Oxley: “This is the first composite repair I was tasked with since qualifying as a composite technician, so it was a really exciting job to do. I engineered a new bale that was lighter, which is important for the weight of the sled, but one that was also stronger and lessens friction on the track compared to a cast repair.”
Adds Cpl Brown: “I was hugely impressed by the AMRC Composite Centre and the work carried out by Oxley went above and beyond what I expected. Structural integrity of a sled is paramount when travelling at speeds of up to 100mph down a concrete tube covered in ice. Regarded as Formula One-on-ice, bobsleigh races are won or lost by hundredths of a second, so a quality repair is of the upmost importance to us.”
IMAGE CAPTION: Members of the AMRC Composite Centre team with Cpl Brown and team mate Snr Aircraft Technician John Barnes.
