page_title: Binyamin Kahane
section_title: Aviation
hierarchical_section_title: Binyamin Kahane / Aviation
caption_attribution_description: עברית: בנימין כהנא דואה מעל חוף בת ים
context_page_description: Binyamin Kahane, 5 March 1911 – 30 October 1956, was an Israeli Air Force officer and pilot who was killed during a reconnaissance sortie. He was awarded the Medal of Courage by the Israeli Defense Forces posthumously. The aerial tactics he used are taught at military air academies worldwide.
context_section_description: Kahane was an avid aviator since his early twenties. His first aerial activity was sky gliding, as a member of The Aero Club of Israel. Devoting himself in aviation, Kahane developed extraordinary skills and achieved notoriety, also turning to training others along the Mediterranean coast. On his website "Air Space" that specializes in aviation history, Avinoam Misnikov cites that in April 1938, at the gliding camp of Children Village, Kahane reached an altitude of 1,250 feet above the point of origin while flying a Chaika glider. In 1936 Kahane participated in the first gliding training course sponsored by the Palestine Aviation Club and held at Givat Brenner.
  The Irgun opened a flying school at Lod airport headed by Moshe Haim Katz. Kahane’s pilot license carried the serial number 6. Kahane was the only graduate who maintained his pilot license current, leading to his becoming a pilot in the Israeli Air Force later on.
  Betar estimated that there were two thousand Jewish pilots around the world who could form the basis of a network of clubs and pilots who could be recruited for action when needed. To that effect, the Pilots Club Tel Aviv was established, and an RWD-15 single engine plane was purchased in Poland using contributions by the Jewish community. On August 20, 1939 three pilots (Abraham Schechterman, Binyamin Kahane, and Yitzhak Barash) were sent to Poland to bring the plane to Israel. World War II, which broke out only eleven days later, prevented their arrival in Poland, and the plane was never delivered.
  In an attempt to contribute to the war effort against the Nazis, Kahane applied as a volunteer pilot to the Royal Air Force (RAF), but was turned down. Continued efforts by the Irgun to secure a plane finally succeeded. In 1941 a two-seater Czechoslovak Zlin XII airplane was purchased in Egypt with funds from a prominent local Jew. Kahane was sent to Egypt to fly the plane from Cairo to Lod.
  Chronic lack of resources made it impossible to keep the plane operational, so it was placed in makeshift storage in a Tel-Aviv basement. Abraham Schechterman was recruited to manage the potassium factories in Sodom in 1943. His condition for accepting the position was that an air link to the factory was to be established: an airstrip was to be built, the plane was to be taken out of storage, and based at the factory with a pilot.  Management finally relented, and Kahane was appointed the company pilot.
  Schechterman writes in his memoirs: "The airport was beneficial in light of the many floods that take place in the area regularly. Most importantly, the air link saved the plant from surrendering during the Israeli War of Independence directly causing the factory to remain inside the Israeli border. Thanks to the airport Sodom could receive supplies and equipment that kept it going. The only connection to the outside world was via air, that allowed not only to hold Sodom, but also to expand beyond it to Ein Gedi to its north and Eilat to its south."
caption: Kahane Gliding in Bat Yam beach
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