ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LtCol (ret) Andrew “Woody” Woodrow enlisted in the Air Force in 1982 and reported for his first of four assignments at the Physiological Support Division (PSD) in 1983. During a 33-year active-duty career, Woodrow was fortunate to serve in ten assignments including three overseas tours as an aerospace and operational physiologist. As if by some grand plan, he navigated through PSD first as an Airman and Non-commissioned Officer, then as a biomedical sciences corps officer, operations flight commander, and eventually serving as Commander of the Physiological Support Squadron.​
His professional experiences in operational physiology span myriad test and evaluation of the human capacity for environmental stress; from depths of 165 feet of sea water in hyperbaric (dive) chambers to altitudes over 75,000 feet in hypobaric (altitude) chambers and hundreds of aerial flights in the U-2 and fourteen other airframes.
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He is a lifelong learner, a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association, past president of the Aerospace Physiology Society, and published author and lecturer. In his encore career, Woodrow teaches aerospace science and lives in the Vancouver, Washington area.
BOOK SUMMARY
The Physiological Support Division, or PSD as it best known, is the flagship of aircrew protection in the Department of Defense. The men and women assigned to this hybrid organization were initially hand-picked from a cadre of life support and aerospace physiology technicians across the Air Force and industry. The officers assigned were versed in the hazards of high-altitude flight and had years of experience in altitude research. From the earliest flights into the stratosphere in the 1950’s it was clear that protecting the pilot from conditions like hypoxia, decompression sickness, and air embolism was paramount to successful missions at the top of the atmosphere. The story of PSD told by Woodrow is drawn from over three decades in the business, including four assignments in the organization at Beale Air Force, California, and RAF Alconbury, United Kingdom. The insights shared here provide a portrait of an extraordinary group of people and the intersection of science and technology in the protection of aircrew in the hostile, near-space environment of the SR-71 and U-2/TR-1. This is the story of the men and women who ‘Stand between Life and Death’ for stratospheric flyers
