First women fighter pilots take to the skies

​Hyderabad: Making a landmark in Indian Defence history, three Flying Officers - Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh - on Saturday were commissioned as India’s first women fighter pilots. The Combined Graduation Parade became cynosure of all eyes as the three officers were formally commissioned into the Indian Air Force (IAF) by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on completion of their successful training at the Air Force Academy in Dundigal on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

All the three women who are in their mid twenties have gone through rigorous training and have cleared 150 hours of flying. They will now be trained for six months on the Advanced Jet Fighter- the British-built Hawk and will be assigned fighters and their squadrons.

Avani Chaturvedi had to abort her second solo flight sortie minutes before the take-off. “As I started rolling for take-off near the first marker, I heard the Canopy Warning Audio,” she recounted. The warning, she said, ‘confused’ her initially, but her hours of training took over and she ‘aborted’ the take-off bringing the aircraft to a halt safely on the runway. She said for pilots it was all about ‘split second’ decisions.

“Had I delayed aborting the take-off or got air borne with the open canopy, it would've been catastrophic,” she added. Flying cadet Bhawana Kanth said she was going in for her first ever solo spin and recovery manoeuvre when flying at 20,000 feet, “doubt started creeping in,” on what would happen if the aircraft did not respond.

But she went into a spin. “It was more vicious,” she said, adding, “The fighter pilot in me took over. The recovery action drilled ‘into us’ took over. The aircraft ‘recovered from spin and so did my confidence.’ On her first solo night sortie, flying cadet Mohana Singh encountered bad weather with thunder and lightning.

She could not distinguish ‘between the stars in the sky and a small cluster of lights on the ground’. Visual cues were going against cues from the instrument. The effect - it was difficult to maintain or ascertain the altitude of the aircraft. Fighting her instincts to trust visual aids, she switched to following only the instruments cues.

“No unnecessary head movement, switch over to instruments, is what I was taught,” she said. Soon, she was in complete control, reoriented herself and ‘recovered the aircraft’. The Union Defence Minister, who was the chief guest, complimented the newly commissioned Flying Officers for the exceptional standard of their parade.

Congratulating the passed-out cadets, the Minister said, “It is a matter of great honour to review the Combined Graduation Parade and to welcome the fine men and women into the Indian Air Force.” Keeping in view the changing geo-political and strategic environment and varied security challenges faced by India,

he urged the young officers to give their best, as future leaders of the IAF and take it to the next higher level of performance by dynamically adapting to the newer environment by imbibing flexibility of mind and agility in decision making.

He said the country was going through a transformational shift to continuously modernise its forces and exhorted them to widen their horizon and keep pace with the swiftly advancing technology to exploit the true potential of the aerospace power.