Chair: Pete Hodkinson
Chair of Session 3 - Unpowered Flight
Wing Commander Hodkinson is the first UK Consultant in Aviation and Space Medicine. The specialty gained GMC recognition in Apr 2016 with subsequent training curriculum approval in Sept 2016. His primary role is at the RAF Centre of Aviation Medicine where he works on health, performance and protection systems for extreme environments. He has been involved with multiple projects related to acute and chronic altitude exposures. A significant strand of protection system work has focussed on oxygen delivery systems for a variety of platforms and uses e.g. helicopters, parachuting and fast-jets. These projects involved a range of activities from specification of requirements through to human testing and in-Service investigations. His PhD looked at what an acceptable degree of acute hypoxia is for helicopter aircrew and trials of portable oxygen delivery systems for this population to use at pressure altitudes up to 15,000 ft.
Dr Hodkinson is Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Aerospace Physiology Group at King’s College London and member of the European Space Agency medical board. He is also a member of the Royal Aeronautical Society Aerospace medicine group committee, Royal College of Physicians Specialty Advisory Committee for Aviation and Space Medicine and past President of the Life Science and Biomedical Engineering Branch of the Aerospace Medical Association. He is UK representative to the NATO Research Tasking Group on White Matter Hyperintensities in hypobaric populations and Co-Chair of the NATO Exploratory Team on Unexplained Physiological Events in high performance aircraft.
