Air Vice-Marshall Professor John Ernsting’s work on aviation physiology and medicine had a profound and lasting influence on the design of crew support apparatus worldwide. Having qualified in Physiology and Medicine at Guy’s Hospital Medical School (1952), he was commissioned into the Medical Branch of the RAF. He subsequently led teams studying high altitude physiology, becoming deputy director of research, and then Commandant (1988-1992), at the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine (IAM) at Farnborough. His work influenced international agreements on cabin pressures in modern airliners. On his retirement from the RAF, he came back to King’s as a visiting Professor where he was closely involved in educational innovations relating to aviation medicine and space physiology. He was appointed OBE in 1959, CB in 1992, and was a Queen’s honorary surgeon from 1989 to 1993. He was a past-president of the International Academy of Aviation and Space Medicine, and received the Louis Bauer Award from the Aerospace Medical Association in 2002.

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