The Air Ministry was created to oversee the formation of the Royal Air Force an amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. As well as overseeing and managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force it also issued specifications for aircraft to aircraft companies. The prototype aircraft would be tested by the Ministry who would then assigned it with a name.

Worked for the RAF Institute of Aviation Medicine, c.1950-1960.

13th September 1923 – 17th July 1987 expert in survival and space medicine, and flight surgeon to the Apollo/Soyuz Mission Group Captain Dr Peter Donald George Venus (P.D.G.V.) Whittingham was born in South Shield on 13th September 1923. He would be educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, before attending the Newcastle School of Durham University to study medicine. After graduation he would join the Royal Airforce in 1948, serving in the Medical Service for 30 years and would eventually retire as a Group Captain. Whittingham would work at the RAF Institute for Aviation Medicine, located on the Farnborough Airfield, and this work would make him an expert in survival medicine. He would be involved in the study of a wide range of subjects including marching in flying boots, pressure suits, flying clothes for tropical weather, water deprivation, emergency rations and other problems of survival. Much of this research was undertaken on himself, and on several occasions, he would suffer from the bends and chokes. Beyond this work, he would also lecture for the other parts of the British military as well the U.S. Airforce, Commonwealth Committee on Defence, NATO and several other organisations. In 1959 he would be awarded an OBE for his work. In 1955, he co-authored a proposal to introduce pressure suits into the RAF, including specific details of recommended equipment, which was subsequently referred to by the Manchester company P Frankenstein & Sons Ltd in their development of a full pressure flying suit for sub-orbital flight. In 1975 he was seconded to NASA and was later he was appointed as a flight surgeon on the joint American-Soviet Apollo/Soyuz Mission. He was the first and only British doctor to be appointed to this role. Following the end of this mission would also be a consultant to the European Space Agency between 1976 and 1978. As a result of his varied work, P.D.G.V. Whittingham was a member of the Association of Flight Surgeons and the International Academy of Aviation and Space Medicine. On 17th July 1987, he would die in Aldershot at the age of 63.

Air Vice-Marshal Professor John Ernsting was recognised worldwide as a leading authority in aviation medicine; his pioneering work led to the development of special life-support equipment allowing military aircrew and civil aircraft to operate at extreme altitudes. Ernsting was commissioned into the RAF Medical Branch in 1954. For 25 years he worked in the altitude division of the Institute of Aviation Medicine (IAM) at Farnborough, and he specialised in studying the physiological aspects of flying at high altitudes, including protection against hypoxia and decompression sickness, leading teams carrying out the research and development of specialised pressure suits, helmets and breathing assemblies needed for new higher flying aircraft. The work he co-ordinated at the IAM on cabin pressurisation also led to an acceptance that the cabin pressure in Concorde should be 6,000ft, rather than the internationally-agreed 8,000ft for airliners operating at lower altitudes. His finding also influenced the design of emergency oxygen supplies in airliners, and also influenced the size of the cabin windows in Concorde. In 1971 he was appointed its head, with responsibility for research, teaching and the direction of the specialist staff. During the late 1960s he was the RAF's aeromedical project officer for the development of the British versions of the American-built F-111, Phantom and Hercules aircraft. He also conducted research into a system of generating an oxygen supply in a combat aircraft. During a sabbatical year at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine, he worked on a development of the idea, which was eventually installed in the later marks of the Harrier aircraft. He returned to the IAM in 1980 as deputy director of research. He was chairman of the aeromedical and life-support system working parties for the Tornado and for the formative phase of the Eurofighter project. In 1988 he was appointed commandant of the IAM, a post he held until his retirement in December 1992. He remained a civil consultant for the next two years. He also placed great emphasis on correct and realistic training, and played a key role in the creation and development of the RAF's Aviation Medicine Training Centre. On leaving the RAF he moved to King's College, London, to teach and conduct research in human and aviation physiology. He was the honorary civil consultant in aviation medicine to the RAF, aeromedical adviser to BAE Systems and a past president of the International Academy of Aviation and Space Medicine. Ernsting was a member of numerous specialist and international working parties, and chaired a number of Nato committees and workshops. He wrote many professional papers and was the co-editor of Aviation Medicine, the standard reference for all civil and military aviation medicine practitioners. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, of the Aerospace Medical Association and of the Royal Aeronautical Society and was awarded many national and international prizes. He was appointed OBE in 1959 and CB in 1992.