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In late 2007, we established the Australian Paediatric Research Network (APRN) - a 350 member strong research network - which aims to facilitate high quality research into common, child health conditions seen in secondary care settings. Through this network we hope to engage paediatricians working at 'the coal face' to generate research ideas, take part in projects and ultimately contribute to better health care and policy for Australian children. As for adults, tertiary institutions remain the predominant site of paediatric research. Tertiary research however, is biased towards severe illness, isolated conditions, highly selected patients and single interventions. This is not always relevant to the real world that paediatricians confront every day. The APRN is off to a strong start. We have worked with members to establish their research priorities and conducted a prospective audit of their caseload to inform the relevance, feasibility and design of future APRN studies. We have developed a website (http://www.aprn.org.au) which will house useful tools for conducting research including child health measures and project design needs. We plan to call for member-initiated research proposals on an annual basis and to conduct a 'multi-topic' survey addressing up to six research topics at any one time. Although conducting research in secondary care settings poses time, cost and process challenges, all of these are firmly within the APRN's sights.

To the Editor. Drs Pathomvanich, Merke, and Chrousos have presented their experience with an instructive patient—a white girl whose pubic hair growth began shortly after her sixth birthday and breast development approximately a year and a half later. An evaluation did not occur until she was age 8.5, when significant insulin resistance was found. The authors go on to state that the child “fell within the normal range according to the data presented by Herman-Giddens et al.”1 We disagree. At least 3 factors about this girl's findings should have alerted her pediatrician to the need for an endocrine referral. First, the age at which her pubic hair growth began was 2.5 standards deviations (SDs) below the mean according to the data presented in our study. Second, it is less common for white girls to begin pubic hair growth before breast development. Third, the long delay between the onset of pubic hair growth and breast growth (greater than a year) is not typical of the normal pubertal sequence of growth. To summarize, this child exhibited premature breast development (not falling into the normal …

Two experimental programs were performed: an in-flight simulation to examine STOL longitudinal characteristics, and a fixed-base simulation to study control power and control usage in hover and low-speed flight. The former experiment was accomplished by the National Research Council of Canada, and the latter by United Aircraft Research Laboratory. A limited analysis of the data obtained was performed by Calspan and recommendations were made for future experiments to expand the data base for existing and additional requirements.

TRANSPORT PLANES), APPROACH, FLIGHT SIMULATORS, STABILITY, INSTRUMENT FLIGHT, PILOTS, REACTION(PSYCHOLOGY), AVIATION SAFETY, GROUND EFFECT*LONGITUDINAL STABILITY, TOUCHDOWN, EVALUATIONAn in-flight simulation to investigate minimum longitudinal stability for large delta-wing transports in landing approach and touchdown (including ground effect) was conducted using the USAF/Calspan Total In-Flight Simulator (TIFS) airplane. Aerodynamic, inertial and control data for this class of airplane were obtained from a prototype Concorde package supplied by the FAA. The simulation program involved the examination of 20 configurations by four evaluation pilots. The configurations evaluated were based upon a systematic variation of the longitudinal stability characteristics for this class of airplane. These variations were designed to examine the influence of pitch stiffness, backsideness, pitch damping and nonlinear pitching moment effects on pilot acceptability of minimum longitudinal stability for the landing approach task. A total of 61 evaluations was performed.