Air Vice Marshal John Ernsting: Commandant of the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine

While working in the altitude division of the institute, of which he was head from 1957 to 1977, he led in the development of the partial pressure suit assemblies based on the pressure jerkin used in the testing of the Lightning interceptor, the Canberra PR9 photo-reconnaissance aircraft, the Vulcan B2 and Victor B2 nuclear weapon-launch aircraft and the Phantom fighter. The pressure jerkins, enabling pilots to function at high altitude, were tested with a range of experiments on himself and his students that would be anathema to an ethics committee attempting to reconcile the risks with today’s health and safety regulations.

Ernsting’s wide range of basic and applied research in altitude physiology and protection established the modern physiological requirements for aircrew breathing systems. His involvement in the design and evaluation of integrated protection systems for military aircrew included research into the respiratory and cardiovascular effects of exposure to acceleration, whole-body vibration and immersion in water. Much of the current aircrew protective and life-support equipment has evolved directly from the pioneering development he performed and the teams he led on both sides of the Atlantic.

He was also closely involved with the work of the human engineering department of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) in the development and application of the concept of integrated equipment assemblies for ensuring the breathing safety of entire crews.

He was the aeromedical project officer for the development of UK versions of the Phantom and F111 fighter, the C130 Hercules long-range transport aircraft, and later became chairman of the aeromedical and life support system working parties for the Tornado and for the Typhoon Eurofighter during the formative phase of that project. In the field of nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, he led the aeromedical component of the joint human engineering division of the RAE-RAF Institute team dealing with associated ground-defence measures.

On leaving the altitude division of the institute in 1977, he became first the deputy director of research at the institute and then director before becoming commandant. He was appointed OBE in 1959 for his work in connection with the Lightning and Canberra aircraft and CB in 1992 on completion of his tenure as Commandant of the RAF Institute of Aviation. He was a Queen’s honorary surgeon from 1989 to 1993.

On retiring from the RAF, he became a visiting professor at King’s College London, teaching on the human and applied physiology MSc course. King’s invited him to establish a research laboratory and he was active both in research and in training undergraduate and postgraduate students throughout the next 16 years. He oversaw introduction of a new MSc in aviation medicine and was recently involved in planning another new MSc in aerospace medicine in collaboration with the European Space Agency. Each of these programmes is unique in the UK.

Closure of the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine at Farnborough, Hampshire, with transfer of some activities to the Centre for Aviation Medicine at RAF Henlow, Bedfordshire, put at risk an internationally renowned six-month diploma in aviation medicine accredited by the Royal College of Physicians. Ernsting set to work to rescue this important course by proposing it should be run as a joint programme between King’s College London and RAF Henlow, an arrangement that has proved most successful, with the course retaining its unique reputation and ethos, and continuing to attract physicians from all over the world.

In February this year he gave the Haliburton lecture at KCL and mentioned two early studies. At an altitude of 75,000ft in a decompression chamber he had removed the glove of his pressure suit, exposing his hand to the rarefied atmosphere at that altitude, a barometeric pressure of just 26mmHg. At such a low pressure tissue water turns to vapour, thus it could be said that the body fluids in his hand boiled. To demonstrate the effect of this he had an X-ray taken which clearly shows the tendons of his hand outlined by gas pockets. On recompression to sea level the vapour turned back into liquid and he suffered no adverse effects.

A second study was to note how long cerebral function continued when circulation to the brain was impeded. He placed a blood pressure cuff round the neck and inflated it to a level above arterial blood pressure and noted that if pure oxygen, rather than air, had been breathed before inflation of the cuff, it took longer to lose consciousness.

“JE” was an inspirational academic leader and a formidable administrator. He used these attributes to maintain and enhance the position and reputation of human and aviation physiology at King’s and in the UK over many years, and continued to work at King’s until the day before his death. He was for many years the principal editor of the textbook Aviation Medicine, which in its latest edition has become Ernsting’s Aviation Medicine, a lasting tribute to his contributions to the discipline.

While working at KCL, he was also still providing consulting services to industry, including guidance on the design and use of emergency parachuting oxygen systems for the BAeS Warton flight-test crew, part of the Nimrod MRA4 trials programme.

In addition to his work at KCL, he was a visiting professor at Imperial College, London, and was a powerful ambassador for aviation medicine on the international stage. He was president of the International Academy of Aviation and Space Medicine from 1995-1997, he received the Louis Bauer Award from the Aerospace Medical Association in 2002, and a research laboratory in Brazil was named after him.

He is survived by his second wife Joyce (“Joy”), n?e Heppell, whom he married in 1970, and a son and a daughter of his first marriage.

Air Vice-Marshal John Ernsting, CB, OBE, was born on April 21, 1928. He died on June 2, 2009, aged 81