Martha King CFI scholarship winner hopes to share love of float flying

Although based in New York City, Kohan will be flying with Tailwind out of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport this winter and plans to work on her flight instructor certificate while in the Sunshine State.

The WAI/Martha King Scholarship for Female Flight Instructors provides free, unlimited access to King Schools courses and includes a $5,000 stipend. The scholarship value totals $18,000.

Many pilots find switching to flying from the left seat to the right seat a challenge when training for the flight instructor certificate, but Kohan already has experience flying from the right seat as second in command on the Caravan. Kohan believes her biggest challenge to earning the certificate “will be learning to speak through all maneuvers and explain what I am doing out loud in order to teach while doing.” On the other hand, Kohan told AOPA via email, “I think it will be a thrilling challenge to get a student to tackle a brand new topic and begin to understand it.”

Kohan said she loves explaining aviation concepts to others and is “excited to meet coachable and enthusiastic students who are ready and willing to work and train hard to reach their goals.” However, she is specifically interested in providing seaplane instruction and wants to “eventually have my own school that focuses primarily on seaplane flying.” She also hopes to upgrade to captain in the Caravan and earn a jet type rating.

Even once she starts flying jets, float flying will always be her favorite: “I think seaplane flying is the most magical, most fun, most challenging, and most exciting thing you can do in aviation,” Kohan said, “and I want to share my love for this kind of flying with the world.”