DUTCH AIR RACE PILOT

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27089, 11 July 1953, Page 6

DUTCH AIR RACE PILOT

CAPTAIN OF K.L.M. ' ENTRY 3,000,000 MILES OF FLYING A Dutch airline pilot who has flown close on 3,000,000 miles and logged more than 18,000 flying hours will command the aircraft entered by K.L.M. Royal Dutch Airlines in the transport handicap section of the Londoh-Christchurch air race in October. He is Captain H. A. A. Kooper, one of the company’s senior captains, who has been flying from Holland to the Far East and across the North Atlantic for 22 years. Captain Kooper. who will be 46 next month, was born at Amsterdam. He entered the Dutch Air Force at the age of 20, and gained his international and military licences in 1928. Towards the end of 1929 he was a sergeant pilot, and then left the Air Force to enter the service of K.LJW. on March 31, 1930. when the, company opened its regular inter-continental service to the Far East. He started as a flight engineer, however, as there wai a demand within the company for such men, but qualified for his B licence in April, 1931. Until May 1, 1933, when he was appointed a pilot on the Far East route, he alternated the duties of flight engineer and pilot. After the Second World War Captain Kooper was sufficiently experienced to qualify for inter-continental captaincy and was promoted to the rank of senior captain on January 1, 1946. He flew mainly on the Far East routes, and played a leading part in the operation of what became known as the Mauritius flights when K.L.M. operated a non-stop service across the Indian Ocean from the island of Mauritius to Jakarta, capital of Indonesia. With the experience he gained flying Lockheed Constellation aircraft Captain Kooper qualified for a captaincy on the K.L.M. North Atlantic routes to which he was assigned in recent years. By January 1 last year he had logged 17,500 flying hours, to which another 1000 flying hours on the North Atlantic routes have to be added.

Captain Kooper is qualified as a captain on Consolidated Convair. Douglas Dakota. Skymaster, DC-6, and DC-6B aircraft, and the various types of Constellation. He also holds a secondclass navigator’s licence, and radio telephone and instructor’s licences.