Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh will become India’s first female fighter pilot to fly the Rafale jet that was formally installed in the Indian Air Force on September 10, officials familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Singh, who hails from Varanasi, is being trained to pilot the IAF’s newest fighter based in Ambala. She is receiving conversion training to fly the Rafale jet and will soon join the Ambala-based No. 17 Squadron, also known as “Golden Arrows.
The officer, who is one of the IAF’s 10 female fighter pilots, joined the air force in 2017. After joining the IAF, she has been piloting the MiG-21 Bison aircraft and until recently was serving in a fighting base in Rajasthan, the officials added. condition of anonymity.
Ten women have been commissioned as fighter pilots after the experimental scheme was introduced for their induction into the IAF combat stream in 2015, a milestone in air force history. The IAF is operating its Rafale fighter jets in the Ladakh theater, where the army is on its highest alert, amid intense border tensions with China. The IAF’s current fleet of five Rafale fighters is fully operational and ready to undertake any mission, officials said.
India ordered 36 Rafale jets from France in a deal worth Rs 59,000 crore in September 2016. The air force formally installed the jets at Ambala air base on September 10, although they landed at their base of operations on July 29. .
The next batch of three to four Rafale aircraft is expected to arrive in Ambala from France in October, followed by a third batch in December. All deliveries will be completed by the end of 2021.
The count of women in the army totals more than 4,000, but combat roles were out of reach until the IAF took the lead in crushing internal resistance and bringing them into the stream of fighters.
Tanks and fighting positions in the infantry remain no-go zones for women, who were allowed to join the military outside of the medical mainstream for the first time in 1992.
Warships are no longer a no-go zone for female naval aviators, and two of them will become the first women in Navy history to operate from and stay on board the flight decks of warships. the navy announced Monday.
Second Lieutenants Kumudini Tyagi and Riti Singh have been selected for the helicopter flow.
“The two-decade struggle has culminated in this storm! In the last three years he has made a lot of progress and now we are seeing another door opening. Absolutely delighted that the air force has not wavered and true to its grain has delivered the newest machine to Shivangi. Come on, girl … Touch the sky with glory, ”said Wing Commander Anupama Joshi (retd), of the first group of women commissioned officers in the IAF in the early 1990s.
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