Cleared for Takeoff: The Unstoppable Life of Kern Magazine’s April Spotlight Honoree, Cooper the Pilot
Written by Kathleen Hokit | Published on April 28, 2026
Featured Photo Credit: Kern Media LLC
She was four years old. She had never been on an airplane. Her world, up until then, had been small—shaped in part by her time in an orphanage in South Korea. And then, in a single day, everything changed.
A group of ten children, most of them babies, and one wide-eyed girl among the few old enough to walk and wonder, were shuffled into what looked, to her, like a very large building. She turned to the house mother and asked the only question that made sense in that moment:
“Is this our new home? Is this the new orphanage?”
A confusing answer followed.
“Oh no—this thing flies.”
It flies. Two words that cracked open a universe.
That little girl is Cooper the Pilot.
Today Cooper is a licensed private pilot and commercial candidate, member of The Women in Aviation and Harvard Emerging Leaders Program, a wing-walking daredevil with her eyes set on Red Bull sponsorship, the founder of the Hangar 22 scholarship program, COO of Pactex Aviation, current Mrs. United States titleholder, devoted supporter of our veterans, mother, and, for the month of April, Kern Magazine’s Community Spotlight Honoree.
She has called Kern County home for eleven years, raised a house full of adventurous children here, and quietly become one of the most inspiring women in our community.
Credit: Kern Media LLC
But to understand who she is, you have to start on that plane, she called “the flying house,” at four years old, pressing her face against a window for the first time and seeing the world from above.
The Flying House
The plane was mostly empty.
Cooper, one of the few children old enough to roam the cabin, made the most of it. She ran the aisles. She pushed every window cover up and down. And in those moments before she even understood what it meant to fly, she was already in love with it.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
“Back then you could still go into the cockpit and they would take you and show you everything. I could run around. I was putting all the windows up and looking out, and it was the first time I had ever seen the world in a different way. It changed my whole perspective.”
What strikes you about this story is not just the wonder of it—it’s the pivot. Here was a four-year-old girl being carried across an ocean to a new country, new parents, new language, a life she hadn’t chosen. The weight of that journey could have swallowed her whole.
“Instead of my focus being on going to a new country, and being adopted by strange people, it was more focused on how can I fly one of these airplanes.”
She would carry that focus throughout her upbringing, but the road between that first flight and the cockpit would be anything but straight.
Her Upbringing in a New World
Cooper grew up in what she describes as a conservative, traditional household where the expectations for women were clearly defined. Asking about flight training was met with a firm redirection.
Flying, she was told, was not for her. And so she found another door—the Air Force Academy. She worked hard for the recommendations. She passed her ASVAB with flying colors. The path was right there.
She didn’t take it.
At sixteen, Cooper found herself in a relationship that, over time, became controlling and difficult to escape. The kind of relationship that is easier to describe from the outside than to escape from within.
She stayed for ten years. She had two daughters inside of that relationship. And then, with very little money, two bags filled with her belongings, and her children in the car, she was finally free.
“I had eight dollars in my pocket. He had taken out all of our money, and so I literally left with two garbage bags, a car, and my kids. It’s a miracle how we survived. We were homeless for a little while.”
During her reflection, she shared a full circle moment of her time working with a Kern County women’s shelter and domestic violence organizations.
And Cooper has a clear message to share in hopes of reaching others that might be in a similar situation.
“Get out and stay out. Because there’s a cycle. And that’s why it took 10 years. From that point on, after I had the strength to leave, I decided never again would I allow anyone to control me enough to make my life decisions. That’s why you see all of these adventures now—because every day is not promised and I want to live it to the fullest.”
Looking Up
Years passed. Cooper remarried, built a family, and moved to Kern County. She talked about flying the way some people talk about a dream they’ve half-given-up on.
“I would never directly say, I want to be a pilot. Even though that’s what I—inside, my heart—was set on, since I was four.”
Her husband’s reaction was different than the type of reaction she was used to, starting with her traditional upbringing.
Two weeks after the birth of their third child—and yes, she’ll tell you herself that you’re not really supposed to be flying two weeks postpartum—he took her on a glider flight.
That Friday, he told her: if you want to learn to fly, do it.
On Monday, she was enrolled.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
“He said, ‘oh, I thought we were going to have a few months.’ I took an accelerated program, which a lot of people don’t know is available. I went around 7 a.m. till 6 p.m.and studied until midnight. For three and a half weeks, my children were right next to me and sometimes sleeping in my arms because I just had a newborn.”
And she passed the 8-hour long evaluation.
Cooper’s training was completed through Pacific Skies Aviation in Torrance, California, and the moment she touched down as a licensed pilot, the trajectory of her life shifted permanently.
From Meeting Women Airforce Service Pilots To Joining The Airspeed Alive Cast
For Cooper, aviation is more than a hobby—it’s a way of life.
“As a pilot, you’re constantly thinking—what new aircraft can I go into? Where can I fly to next? What kind of adventure can I have? So it really just takes every part of you and becomes ingrained.”
Even the unexpected became part of the journey. When COVID grounded planes for six months, Cooper started posting old flight videos to social media—just to pass the time.
But aviation has a way of finding its people.
What started as a quiet outlet quickly connected her to a global community of pilots, and in turn, they found her. Her following grew. Opportunities followed. And not long after, she was awarded a scholarship from Women in Aviation International for her instrument rating.
It was there—at that conference, surrounded by women who had carved their own paths through the sky—that she came face to face with a legacy she couldn’t ignore.
More than a thousand women stepped forward during World War II, flying military aircraft across the country at a time when few believed they belonged in the cockpit. They ferried planes, tested aircraft, and took on missions that freed male pilots for combat—quietly becoming essential to the war effort.
They were highly trained. They were trusted with nearly every type of aircraft in the U.S. fleet.
And still, they were classified as civilians—without military benefits, without recognition, and often without support even in death.
Recognition wouldn’t come until decades later.
For Cooper, meeting them served as a reminder of what came before her, and what still needs to move forward.
“I met women from all over the world and they award over $1,000,000 in scholarships every year. And it was my first year as a pilot. I feel very fortunate that I got to be a part of that because that was another life-changing moment.”
From there, everything accelerated. Her social media following grew from 1,000 to 115,000. A TV show, Airspeed Alive, is now in development with her as part of the cast.
And somewhere in between, she became the kind of pilot who says yes to the next adventure.
Can Chickens Fly?
When we say Cooper is a yes girl, we mean it in the most literal, altitude-defying sense of the phrase.
Wing walking, for the uninitiated, is exactly what it sounds like. You climb out of an open-cockpit biplane, attach yourself to a thin tether, clamber over the pilot, and make your way out onto the wings—in open air, while the plane is flying.
Cooper does this, and she does it enthusiastically. And when Quentin Tarantino calls Cooper to cast her as his next stuntwoman, we’d just like it on record—Kern Magazine called it.
“You climb out on the wings and do whatever you want—make faces—just enjoy being out in the wind and open air and seeing the sky without any limitations.”
You can read about her experience during the below shot here.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
She is also, for the record, a Red Bull Flugtag competitor. If you’re not familiar with Flugtag—the word is German for Flying Day—here is the concept: you and a team of five build a completely human-powered aircraft at the event location, no prior construction allowed, no hydraulics, no engineering shortcuts.
You put it on a cart. Your team pushes the cart off a 22-foot ramp. And then you hope, sincerely, that it flies.
Cooper’s team built a chicken.
“People are always saying chickens don’t fly. I love to prove people wrong.” she says. “We actually got 4th place. It was our first time in the competition. She flew 27 feet. I mean, we thought it was gonna go off the ramp and then straight down, but she flew. In my mind, I proved everyone wrong—chickens can fly.”
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
Gravity Gurus Flugtag Team’s 2026 entry is already in the works.
And Red Bull itself is on Cooper’s radar. Getting Red Bull wings—the brand’s coveted sponsorship—requires doing something so singular, so jaw-dropping, that the company decides they want you on their team.
“Very difficult. You have to find something that’s unique and that makes Red Bull go, that’s insane, we want you to be a part of our team, do this for us, and let’s show the world.”
And to no surprise, Cooper is working on it.
Given that this is a woman who skydives before most people have finished their morning coffee and who considers a glacier landing in Alaska a casual travel highlight, we would not bet against her.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
Hangar 22: Building The Runway For The Next Generation
Here is something some might not know about breaking into aviation: it is expensive before you ever touch a plane.
Headsets alone can run $1200-1800. Flight bags, charts, instruments, appropriate gear—by the time you walk through the door of a flight school, you may already need $5,000 worth of equipment you didn’t know about.
And the scholarships that exist?
According to Cooper, many require lengthy applications that can take weeks of effort and many offer very little support once the money is handed over.
Cooper noticed all of this because she applied to over 420 scholarships herself during COVID.
“I really grew to understand why girls couldn’t or wouldn’t apply for these scholarships. It took so much time. And you don’t want to be away from your family that much.”
So she built something different.
In 2022, she launched Hangar 22—named both for the year it was founded and for the spirit of hangar culture itself:
“In aviation, when people say, hey, do you want to go do some hangar talk? Or do you want to have a hangar party? That means, hey, the whole aviation community is coming together to hang out and just get to know each other. And then it was finalized in 2022. So Hangar 22 came out.”
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
Cooper’s scholarship program simplifies the application process, partners with aviation brands that understand what it means to be just starting out, and ensures that every winner receives at minimum a professional headset and the gear they’ll need.
Scholarships range from $2,500 to $10,000, and the program awards approximately $20,000 per year.
This month, Cooper awarded a $4,500 seaplane scholarship to a woman pursuing her commercial certification.
But more than the money, what Hangar 22 offers is something most scholarship programs skip entirely:
“I keep in touch with all my scholarship winners, and I ask them periodically—do you need help? What are your goals now? Do you need a connection? I don’t just leave them alone after that. I keep them, and I’m building this community, and I ask them, how can I help you get your next job?”
Through Hangar 22, she’s building more than scholarships—she’s building access. For the girls who carry that same spark she felt the first time she looked out an airplane window, especially the ones who were told it wasn’t meant for them.
“Applicants send me a video of themselves and then [we have] a phone conversation to get to know them. To me the old paper applications and essays are outdated. It is very difficult to get to know someone from an essay unless they are a good writer, which most pilots are not. We think factually. My scholarships give applicants to share the points in their lives that are important to them, not what is important to me.”
And her goals don’t stop at the scholarship program.
Cooper’s also working toward launching a national aerobatic academy—modeled after the Formula One Academy—to train the next generation of airshow performers, with a focus on bringing more women into the sky.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
If you want to help open the sky for the next generation, Cooper wants to hear from you.
The Way Back Home
Cooper’s story doesn’t end—or begin—with aviation. There is another thread running through her life, that is, the search for where she came from.
In the decades following the Korean War, as the country struggled to rebuild, South Korea became the center of one of the largest international adoption movements the world has ever seen.
Western nations, the United States among them, along with France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and others, joined the list of adoption recipients.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
The demand was intense, and the system that rose to meet it moved children across oceans at staggering speed.
At its peak in the 1970s and ‘80s, South Korea was sending out hundreds of children per month. The Korean adoptee diaspora is now estimated at around 200,000 children—widely considered the largest in the world.
According to findings of an in-depth investigation by AP, a deeply troubling pattern was revealed: orphanage records falsified, names and birthdays changed upon arrival, parents who came looking for their children turned away because the name on the paperwork no longer matched.
In some cases, Cooper shares, children were taken from their families—sometimes by strangers, sometimes by relatives desperate for money—and delivered to institutions that processed them into the adoption pipeline.
When parents arrived at the orphanage doors with photos and names, they were told no such child existed.
Around 200,000 Korean children were sent abroad under this system—and how many of those adoptions were built on fabricated paperwork remains, to this day, unknown. (AP, PBS)
Cooper grew up knowing, in her bones, that she was one of those children.
“I am one of those kids that were taken, and my name and birthday was changed. I was almost five when I came over. They kept telling me, you were abandoned, your mother doesn’t want you. I knew my whole life that wasn’t true. I remember my mother, and I remember being loved, and I remember siblings.”
In 2021, Cooper saw an online call for Korean adoptees interested in doing a birth search. She applied, forgot about it, and then one day she was flying and she came down to find a message waiting: you’ve been accepted to go to Korea.
She went. She walked into the records office already knowing that her name and birthday had been changed, and when her translator came to her in tears, unsure how to deliver the news, Cooper told her: “I already know.”
“She was so relieved. She was so scared to tell me because a lot of adoptees do have expectations of finding their parents and don’t know this background. It’s very upsetting. But I already knew going into it.”
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
Through DNA testing, Cooper recently found a cousin—and met her for the first time just this past February, in Dallas, Texas. They got along beautifully. Cooper is now helping her cousin begin her own birth search.
Finding her biological parents remains uncertain—DNA testing isn’t widely adopted in Korea, and the records are incomplete. But Cooper holds that possibility lightly, with the same pragmatic hope that marks everything she does:
“I really hope that they’ll open it up to siblings or aunts and uncles so that I can at least get some kind of connection—put more pieces to my history.”
She is also working on a guide—a step-by-step series for adoptees who want to start the search but don’t know how. Her DMs are full of people asking that exact question, and she will answer.
That, too, is part of who she is: she finds the door, figures out how to open it, and then props it open for everyone behind her.
Mrs. United States
In between all of this—the flying, the scholarships, the birth search, the wing walking, not to mention being on mom duty—Cooper competed for United States National Pageant 2025.
She had been a pageant competitor since her teens, earning enough scholarship money to fund college ambitions that had been long delayed.
Cooper has participated in pageants before, but she had largely kept that history quiet.
“Now, this is really the only time my kids—they were like, pageants? Do you know anything about pageants? They weren’t aware that I had this long history because I didn’t really talk about it. Aviation was what I talked about.”
But her most latest win was different. This time, she walked into the United States National Pageant with aviation as her platform.
She talked about Hangar 22. She talked about where she’d been and, more importantly, where she was going.
She wasn’t describing a dream—she was reporting on work already in progress.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
“The most important thing to have is to already be doing what you want to be doing during your year. Don’t say I will do this or my dream is to do this. It’s: I am doing it.”
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
She won. And she didn’t tell her husband or her kids she was about to go on that stage to compete for the title.
She packed a bag, told them she was going to Vegas for the weekend, and came home with a crown.
“I think I just wanted it to be a surprise if I did [win]. And then I just went to have fun if I didn’t.”
Credit: Kern Media LLC
Calling Kern County Home And The Family That Creates Adventures
Cooper and her family moved to Kern County for what was supposed to be three years. Eleven years later, she has no interest in leaving.
When talking about Kern County, Cooper holds a special place in her heart for the Kern River.
She was visiting the Kern River with a friend—her friend had agreed to go white water rafting but was nervous, and knew Cooper had done it before. Cooper had never met the group they were joining.
Her future husband was guiding.
“So he’s guiding and we’re coming up on this curve called Dead Man’s Curve. And everybody falls out, and I go missing—according to him. So he’s running and looking, and I’m just over here in a kind of a whirlpool. But I was collecting paddles so I could float down. I got to the paddles, floated down. I was like, hey. Then I got on shore, and I said, ‘hey, did y’all lose your paddles?’ That’s rule number one. You don’t let go of your paddles in the river. So I said, ‘I’ve got all of them.’ And he’s like ‘okay, everybody pack up’ and I said, ‘oh no, why? Did something happen?’ And he goes, ‘yeah, you ended up swimming so far.’ [Then I said] ‘Oh, I’m fine, let’s go.’ And he’s like — that’s the moment. That’s the moment for him.”
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
That was the moment he knew she was the one.
But it took a little convincing.
“I stood him up a couple of times. The third time, it worked.”
Now, every time he asks if it might be time to leave Kern County, the answer is: not yet.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
“I love the feeling of family here, something I haven’t experienced except with my own kids—that home family community.”
Cooper hasn’t just built a life here—she’s woven herself into the community.
She judges the Wasco Rose Queen Pageant, serves monthly breakfasts for local veterans, supports Honor Flight Kern County, and has quietly taken hundreds of Kern County kids on their very first flight.
At home, that same spirit shows up in how she’s raising her family.
When we asked if she likes to hike, her response?
“Do I like to hike?”
Her kids have been on trails since they were six weeks old. Five miles is standard. Ten, with camping, is the goal.
“My husband and I love camping and hiking. My kids have been hiking since they were about six weeks old. We immediately take them hiking, get them used to it. Typically, it’ll be five miles, but we like them to get used to ten.”
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
But one tradition stands above the rest.
When each of her daughters turns thirteen, Cooper takes them to Big Pine Lakes—a five-lake trek that grows more difficult with each stretch, often layered in snow and ice. It’s not a casual hike.
It requires preparation, endurance, and intention.
“I like to do a trek when they turn 13. I take them up to Big Pine Lake. There’s five lakes up there, and as you go, it gets a little bit harder… you need ice picks, snowshoes, waterproof everything. But it’s so beautiful. It’s one of the only glaciers here—I think it’s the only glacier left on that whole ridge in California.”
There’s a reason she chose that place.
“I take them hiking to Big Pine Lake to talk about becoming a woman… what the future holds. I didn’t have that growing up. I didn’t have a mom to talk about those things. So I give them that time. That’s our special trip.”
She Shows Up: A Dedication to Those Who Served
There is a rhythm to Cooper’s month where she gives back to the community. Once a month she shows up to serve breakfast to Kern County’s veterans.
“I’ve been doing that for a while. That’s important to me.”
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
Her son is heading into the military—a path Cooper encouraged with full conviction.
“He was hesitant, but I told him all the opportunities. I feel like it’s very important to serve your country. Even though I’m a naturalized citizen, I’m very patriotic and I want my kids to understand that. I’m not Korean-American. I’m American, and I happen to be Korean. That’s your ethnicity, but that’s not your nationality.”
She is also an advocate for Honor Flight Kern County—the program that flies veterans to Washington D.C. to visit the memorials built in their honor. To stand at the wall. To touch the names.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
“I want the community to know more about that. I feel like the community sees it, but they don’t really know about it and what it means for the veterans to be able to go on the flight and go touch the names of the fallen.”
There are typically two Honor Flights out of Kern County each year—one in the spring, one in the fall. Cooper wants more people to know they exist, what they mean, and how to support them.
For Cooper, the monthly breakfast and the advocacy aren’t separate acts of service. They’re the same impulse—the belief that the people who have given so much to our country through service and sacrifice deserve to be seen, remembered, and lifted.
“For me, that’s what serving the veterans and being part of that means.”
For Cooper, lifting people is simply what you do with a life that’s fully lived.
Kern Magazine’s Signature Questions
What do you love about your Kern County community?
“When we came here, I loved the fact that I can let my kids go play with the neighbor kids. I feel safe. My neighbor is just wonderful. I don’t have family here and she became my family, and at the drop of a hat if I need to go do something, [she can watch] my kids. She has almost as many kids as I do. So it’s a whole big pack when we all get together. That whole experience changed our trajectory because we were supposed to leave in 3 years, and every time my husband says, hey, do you think it’s time? No, no, no. It’s not time. I just love the feeling of family here. And the fact that I get to go judge the Wasco Rose Pageant almost every year. I met my husband in Kern County. For me, it was a sign to move here and live here and raise my kids in a safe community where I feel like they can be with friends. Whereas where we were before, I couldn’t even let them outside alone.”
When you eat local, where do you love to go?
“My husband and I love Cafe Smitten. They have one downtown—it’s our date spot. When the kids go to school, we’ll sneak off over there. I love hole-in-the-wall spots. I like to find local owners, not chain restaurants. That’s my favorite thing. And so I like to explore a lot. My kids love Jin Sushi. I do too. They’re super nice—they always remember us. And then there’s the Knotty Pine Cafe at the airport. You go have breakfast after you land.”
When you want to get out of town, where do you like to go – and we’ve got to ask – what is your favorite aircraft?
“As a pilot, my get-out-of-town looks a little different. My favorite spot is Amboy, California—out on Route 66. You come over the mountains and there’s this gravel strip. You taxi out onto the highway to get to the gas station. Roy’s is out there—I think it was featured in Cars. There’s also a crater the kids can climb. It’s a must-do. And my second place would have to be—I got to land on Denali on a de Havilland Beaver on skis, on this huge glacier. You can’t understand how big it is until you’re flying around the top of that mountain and then landing on a glacier.
Courtesy of Cooper the Pilot
“I’ve flown many, many aircraft, but I love the Cessna 182. Everyone says what? Why? You know, for me, when I’m flying, it’s about enjoying and it’s my time. And so when I’m typically flying these other aircraft that I have been in, It’s not for myself. And so when I’m in the 182, my little 182 and I’m just flying around—it’s just for me and I’m doing what I want to do that day.”
For anyone watching from the ground, wondering if a career in aviation could ever be for them, especially girls, what would you say?
“I just want girls to know that it’s possible and that it is for them. It’s not for their brother, it’s for them. I will offer it to anyone in this community. I’ve taken hundreds of kids in this county. You can come fly with me anytime.”
Support Hangar 22: If you’d like to sponsor a young woman’s aviation path, or donate to the Hangar 22 scholarship program, reach out to Cooper the Pilot directly through her social media channels.
