Come Saturday and three Indian women will achieve a feat extraordinaire. In Hyderabad, Flying Cadets Bhavana Kanth, Avani Chaturvedi and Mohana Singh will become Flying Officers and go down in Indian history books as the first lady fighter pilots to have been commissioned by the Indian Air Force. Along with this will begin a new journey of grit and valour wherein they will not only be the RsGuardian of the Skies' but also be prepared to handle combat situations.
Having cleared the first stage of training and with 150 hours of flying, these lady officers will again train for six months on the Advanced Jet Fighter before being assigned fighters and their squadrons. Overcoming uncertainities and hazards of flying, the trio narrated their moments of scare and how they held on with confidence to win the battle between mind and fear to get wings to fly high and rule the skies.
"Night flying was new to me and it was the best thing that ever happened after coming to Kiran ac. I remember the small puffs of beautiful crackers bursting 1000 ft below me on my first take off in night flying phase. The ones I used to gaze from below and was amazed at when I was a child," said Flying Cadet Mohana Singh of Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan. Daughter of an IAF personnel, Mohana had all along dreamt of carrying forward the family legacy of donning IAF uniform. Her grandfather too was in IAF.
Talking about her first solo night sortie, Mohana said: "While operating in sector I witnessed some lightning close to me which frightened me for a moment. I immediately initiated rejoin and during descent I encountered clouds. I faced difficulty in discerning between the stars in the dark sky above and the small clusters of light on the dark ground beneath. Soon I realized that I was not able to maintain any connection between instruments and the visual indications of aircraft attitude. I recalled what my Instructor had taught me, "No unnecessary head movements, switch over to Instruments, Trust your Instruments". These words echoed in my head, I disregarded the visual indications and continued descent to a lower altitude relying totally on instruments. Once visual with the ground, I got oriented and recovered the aircraft safely."
Flying Cadet Avani too had her share of scare during the training and a decision taken during a Rssplit of second' saved her life . "I was proceeding for my second solo sortie for the day. As I started rolling for take-off, nearing the first marker I heard the Canopy Warning Audio coming on. At first I got confused seeing the emerging situation. However, the training which I had undergone helped me reach the decision almost immediately. I aborted the take off and took all the actions to stop the aircraft safely. I realised how the decision of a split second can get the situation under control or out of control. Had I delayed my actions that day of aborting taking off or got airborne with the canopy open, the results could have been catastrophic," said Avni, who hails from Satna in Madhya Pradesh.
For Flying Cadet Bhawana Kanth doubts started creeping in at a crucial moment flying at 20,000 feet. As she was going in for her first ever solo spin and recovery manoeuvre when "doubt started creeping in," on what would happen if the aircraft didn't respond. The brave girld from Bihar's Darbhanga, however, fought her fears and held on. "I told myself that if I don't do it now, I will always be afraid of it. I spun the aircraft and to my surprise, the spin was more vicious or so it seemed. But the fighter pilot in me took over and I told myself come what may I will recover. And all the recovery actions grilled in us during the training came out correctly and promptly and the aircraft recovered from spin and so did my confidence," Bhawana said.