On May 31, 2019, Flt Lt Mohana Singh scripted glorious history. She became the first woman pilot of the Indian Air Force, to become operational on a Hawk advanced jet aircraft.
¡°Flt Lt Mohana Singh became the first woman fighter pilot to become fully operational by day on Hawk advanced jet aircraft as she landed after a grueling 4 Aircraft combat sortie at Air Force station Kalaikunda, West Bengal, which was the last syllabus sortie of being fully operational on Hawk jets,¡± ANI quotes the Indian Air Force as saying.
ANI
Singh is one of India¡¯s first female fighter pilots and her achievement comes at the heels of Bhawana Kanth becoming the first female fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force. She underwent rigorous training in order to be operational on Hawk -? this included Air to Air combat and Air to Ground missions.
¡°She has undertaken many practice missions which involved firing of rockets, guns and dropping high caliber bombs and also participated in various Air Force Level flying exercises. She has a total of over 500 hours of incident-free flying, of which 380 hours are on the Hawk Mk 132 jet,¡± IAF¡¯s statement read.
Singh is the second of the trio that included Bhawana Kanth and Avani Chaturvedi, who had joined IAF¡¯s fighter stream in June 2016.