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Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Ralph Kohn was educated at Victoria College (Alexandria) and at Nottingham. He majored in Textiles prior to a career in aviation. Learning to fly in 1950 whilst still at college, he served with the RAFVR then obtained his commercial pilot license in 1953. He was an aero-club instructor before joining Eagle Aviation as a First Officer in 1955. In 1960 he gained his first command on Vikings, staying with the company as it changed name until Eagle Airways ceased operations in 1968. After a short spell with Dan Air, he joined the British Aircraft Corporation as a training captain, and then moved to the UK CAA Flight Operations Inspectorate in 1971.
After retiring from the CAA as a senior flight operations and training inspector in 1991, he went on to help the Bermuda DCA as a principal inspector of flight operations during the setting up of the necessary regulatory infrastructure to satisfy ICAO, UK CAA and FAA norms for the supervision of aircraft operations within the Bermuda Aircraft Register jurisdiction. Other ‘overseas’ Regulatory Authorities were also helped on a consultancy basis to achieve a similar status.
Ralph has flown some 16,500 hours of which over 11,000 were in command of such aircraft as the Vickers Viking, DC6A/B, Vickers Viscount, Bristol Britannia 300s, all the BAC 1-11 variants, Boeing 707-100/300/720 and Boeing 747-100/200/400 series aircraft, not to mention a variety of smaller aeroplanes like the HS 125, Beagle 205, Beech 90, DH Dove, DH Heron, Avro Anson, Airspeed Oxford and Consul, DHC Chipmunk, Percival Proctor, DH 82A Tiger Moth and various Austers, instructing on many of these. The totals mentioned above do not include countless hours spent on classroom instruction, the few thousand hours spent in simulators instructing or examining on a variety of jet aircraft, or the many hours spent on flight inspections and checking / testing simulators, over the last 30 years.
His experience ranges from ab-initio instructing to teaching pilots on conversion to a new aircraft type in an airline training environment. He was a training inspector and TRE/IRE on Boeing 747 and 707 aircraft with the UK CAA and his duties included CAA Flying Unit instruction of trainee Instrument Rating and Type Rating examiners at Stansted, where airline pilots underwent training and testing to achieve Authorised Examiner status.
A Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Captain Kohn is a founder member of The Society’s Flight Operations Group and was its chairman from 2003 to 2006. He is a Liveryman of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators. He was awarded the Guild’s Master Air Pilot Certificate in 1978 and is also a participating consultant on the Education and Training Committee of that Guild. |
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