Flying Officer Avani Chaturvedi on Wednesday became the first Indian woman pilot to fly solo a fighter jet. She flew a Mig-21 for 30 minutes at the Suratgarh airbase in Rajasthan.
Along with two other woman pilots of IAF namely Flying Officer Bhavana Kanth and Flying Officer Mohana Singh, Chaturvedi was selected for combat flying two years back thereby becoming the first women pilots to join the fighter stream.
Bhavana and Mohana are also likely to undertake first ever solo flights on MIG-2I in the coming days at Ambala and Kalaikund airbases respectively in similar type of aircraft. Till now, all the three pilots had flown solo in aircraft like Pilatus trainer aircraft and Hawk Advanced Jet Trainers(AJT). However, flying a supersonic jet like MIG-21 is a different ball game and officials said it is significant achievement for Chaturvedi.
After successfully flying some more sorties alone, the three pilots will then get trained in tricky combat manouveres. This phase will be followed by flying at night and during moonless nights so as to gain experience in overall combat scenario besides fighting in all kinds of weather. This critical phase will take about a year before the first three women pilots are declared fit for combat flying, officials said.
IAF is the first service to induct women in combat role while the Army and Navy are yet to follow suit. The decision to induct women in fighter jet flying was taken three years back and the three pilots were shortlisted after rigorous screening.
As of now, women fly transport planes and helicopters in the IAF, Army and Navy. Army is yet to induct women into fighting arms like infantry, artillery and armoured corps due to social perception and issues of safety during a combat. However, women officers are serving in non-fighting arms like Engineers, Army Service Corps(ASC), Ordnance, Judge and Advocate General(JAG) branch and Military Intelligence.
Similarly, women officers are yet to be deployed on warships and submarines in the Navy due to inherent issues like lack of separate accommodation facilities during long sailing tours.