CHALET CARD
PEER REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
Wilkes M, Charles R, Long G, Massey H, Eglin C, Tipton M. Ergonomics of paragliding reserve parachute deployment in linear acceleration. Appl Ergon. 2020 Sep 1;90:103229.
Wilkes M, Long G, Massey H, Eglin C, Tipton MJ. Cognitive Function in Simulated Paragliding Flight. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2019 Oct 1;90(10):851-859.
Parr N, Wilkes M, Hawkes LA. Natural Climbers: Insights from Avian Physiology at High Altitude. High Alt Med Biol. 2019 Oct 16.
Wilkes M. MacInnis MJ, Hawkes LA, Massey HC, Eglin C, Tipton M. The physiology of paragliding flight at moderate and extreme altitudes. High Alt Med Biol. 2018 Mar;19(1):42-51.
Wilkes M, MacInnis MJ, Witt MJ, Vergalla M, Verschave-Keysers M, Thomas A, Hawkes LA. Paragliding and the study of extreme altitude. High Alt Med Biol. 2017 Jan 10.
Wilkes M, Simpson A, Knox M, Summers L. Kilimanjaro score for assessing fitness to fly paragliders at high altitude. High Alt Med Biol. 2013 Sep;14(3):304-7.
ARTICLES AND PODCASTS
Dr Matt Wilkes and Andre Bandara summarise the zipline and G force studies in Emergency Parachute Research – Final Report [YouTube Video].
Dr Matt Wilkes discussing accident stats, hypoxia, cold, reserve deployment and Mont Blanc with Gavin McClurg on Episode 127 of the Cloudbase Mayhem podcast (10 Sept 2020).
Dr Matt Wilkes discussing accident management and the Free Flight Physiology Project with Gavin McClurg on Episode 43 of the Cloudbase Mayhem podcast (6 June 2017).
Wilkes M, Bandara A. Emergency Parachute Throw – How to Design and Deploy a Reserve with Dr Matt Wilkes [YouTube Video].
Reserves and G-Force: What you need to know. Cross Country. 2020 Oct; 214:30-35.
How dangerous is paragliding? Cross Country. 2020 Oct; 214:29-32
BFR Feedback. Cross Country. 2020 Feb; 207:36-37.
The BFR Study. Cross Country. 2019 Dec; 206:44-51.
Shouldering the pain. Cross Country. 2019 Jul. 201:79-81.
Cold hands, warm heart. Cross Country. 2018 Oct; 194:48-53.
In a Heartbeat: the Free Flight Physiology Project. Cross Country. 2018 Feb; 187:46-53.
Paragliding: the sky is the limit for sports’ medicine. British Journal of Sports Medicine Blog 2017 Dec 11.
Adventure Medicine for pilots. Cross Country. 2016 Oct; 173:56-65.
CHALET Card: What to do in an emergency. Cross Country. 2016 Oct; 173:56-65.
Flying high. Cross Country 2016 Feb-Mar; 167:57-64.
EXPEDITION REPORTS AND FIELD NOTES
High-altitude paragliding expeditions generate a large amount of physiological data that never reaches peer-reviewed journals. Working with the Free Flight Physiology Lab, Wilkes and Hawkes have published open expedition reports from pilot studies on Mont Blanc, the Karakoram and the Nepalese Himalaya. These reports include full environmental timelines, core temperature traces, oxygen saturation charts and incident summaries. The 2021 Aconcagua report, for example, documents 14 pilot flights between 4,300 m and 6,100 m with continuous heart rate, respiratory rate and GPS altitude data. A companion report from the 2022 Dhauladhar range covers cold injury incidence, hydration strategies and reserve deployment drills at 5,500 m.
Field notes are deliberately written for a mixed audience of pilots, expedition medics and researchers. Each report contains a short “what went wrong” section and a set of practical recommendations for future teams, such as pre-flight urine specific gravity thresholds, glove layering for high-wind launches and the minimum acclimatisation period before carrying a passenger above 5,000 m. The reports are not peer reviewed in the traditional sense, but they remain citable grey literature and are often used as supplementary material for later publications.
CLINICAL GUIDANCE AND SAFETY ADVISORIES
Several advisory notes have been produced for doctors and expedition medics assessing paragliding pilots before high-altitude or thermally demanding flights. The 2020 consensus note on syncope in paragliding, co-authored by Wilkes, Eglin and Tipton, reviews the common causes of in-flight loss of consciousness, including hypoxia, hyperventilation, harness-induced venous pooling and G-force-related greyout during spiral or wingover manoeuvres. The authors provide a pre-flight checklist for identifying pilots at elevated risk and a structured post-incident medical evaluation framework.
A shorter clinical advisory on cold injury and frostbite in mountain paragliding was published in 2023 following a cluster of digit injuries in alpine pilots. The guidance covers wind chill at launch, finger perfusion during brake control, and the difference between non-freezing cold injury and true frostbite. It has been adopted by several national paragliding associations as part of their instructor training materials. A summary version for pilots, with a colour-coded risk card, is available alongside the chalet card download above.
OPEN-ACCESS DATASETS AND CODE REPOSITORIES
Alongside the formal publications, the research group maintains a small repository of anonymised physiological datasets for paragliding flights at moderate and extreme altitude. These include second-by-second data from GPS loggers, pulse oximeters, core temperature pills and flight instruments collected during flights in the Alps, Andes and Himalaya. The datasets are released under a Creative Commons Attribution licence and have been used by independent researchers to validate hypoxia models and to develop pilot workload metrics.
The repository also includes R and Python scripts for cleaning flight tracks, interpolating missing sensor data, and calculating exposure metrics such as time above 5,000 m, cumulative hypoxic dose and cold strain index. A small visualisation tool, built as an interactive HTML dashboard, allows users to replay flights with synchronised altitude, heart rate and acceleration traces. No individual pilot identifiers are included, and all data are stripped of location metadata from private launch sites.
TRAINING RESOURCES AND WORKSHOP MATERIALS
Teaching packs developed from the research have been used in instructor workshops and expedition medicine courses. The core materials include slide decks on altitude physiology for paragliders, pre-flight screening worksheets, and standardised briefings for group trips above 4,000 m. A one-day workshop module, “Physiology for the Long Flight,” covers hydration, thermal management, hypoxia symptoms and the practical use of fingertip oximeters in flight.
- Altitude illness and paragliding: a pilot-focused briefing pack
- Cold hands, cold decisions: a thermal workshop for alpine pilots
- Reserve deployment drills under physical and cognitive stress
- Reading your flight data: heart rate, oxygen and G-force basics
These resources are revised annually to incorporate new findings from the ongoing reserve parachute and cognitive function studies. Shorter video explainers and printable handouts are available for clubs and instructors, and many have been translated into French, German and Spanish by partner associations.