NEW DELHI: India’s first female combat aircraft pilots are likely to fly the supersonic Sukhoi-30 jets after they complete the last leg of their training in September, Indian Air Force officials told Hindustan Times.
The three women are currently training on British Hawk advanced jet trainers at an IAF facility at Kalaikunda in West Bengal. Bhawana Kanth, Mohana Singh and Avani Chaturvedi were commissioned as flying officers in the IAF last June.
“There are varied options but we are working on plans to assign the women fighter pilots to fly Su-30 fighter planes initially. It’s a new generation, twin-seater aircraft,” a senior officer familiar with the plan said.
The women volunteered for the fighter stream after the government ended a rigid genderbased combat exclusion policy in October 2015. The women are part of a batch of 40 flying officers training on Hawks at the Kalaikunda air force station. The batch was supposed to be assigned to fighter squadrons in June itself but the plan has been delayed by three months due to training backlog.