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David Cockburn joined the Civil Aviation Authority in 1999 to fill the role of General Aviation Safety Promotion and Education. Since then David has become very well known to the GA community across the UK through his programme of GA Safety Evenings held at flying clubs throughout the autumn and winter. He also attends every major GA-related event in the UK, such as AeroExpo, The Flying Show and the LAA Rally, to deliver lectures and presentations. During the last year he has played a leading role, as one of the ‘Core Team’, in establishing the European General Aviation Safety Team (EGAST) where his language skills in German, French and Russian have been very useful in developing flight safety material for publication across Europe.

Since joining the CAA David has written and edited many of the articles for the CAA’s General Aviation Safety Information Leaflet (GASIL), which is sent each month to the owner of every UK registered GA aircraft and to all flying club CFIs. David has also been responsible for the CAA’s ‘Safety Sense’ leaflets, ensuring they are kept up to date and topical.

Despite an often punishing schedule of late nights and long drives between Safety Evening venues, David’s ebullient enthusiasm for his safety promotion role has never diminished. His non-preaching, self-deprecating style of presentation, together with his willingness to share with others the lessons he has learnt throughout his flying career, is evidence of his empathy with GA pilots. This makes his safety messages all the more effective.

Prior to joining the CAA David served for 28 years in the Royal Air Force as a pilot, initially on the Vulcan and the Canberra and later on the Jet Provosts and Chipmunk. Having gained his PPL in 1965, he obtained his commercial licence in 1995 and his airline transport licence in 2001, which he still manages to maintain. He has been a CAA flying instructor since 1995, and a PPL examiner since 2003, on single engine piston aeroplanes and touring motor gliders.

David is the author of the Radio Aids volume of the series "Ground Studies for Pilots", published by Blackwell, and the series of JAR PPL training books published by Pooleys Flight Equipment.

As well as performing his CAA role with great dedication and energy, David is also an utterly incorrigible GA enthusiast who gives up a great deal of his spare time to support other aviation related bodies such as CHIRP, GAPAN and the Royal Institute of Navigation.

It would not be an exaggeration to state that for the last decade David Cockburn’s entire life has revolved around aviation safety education. For his total commitment to this field in all aspects of his busy life David Cockburn is awarded the Sir James Martin Award.

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