India's First-Ever Women Fighter Pilots To Tear Into Skies For Solo MIG-21 Flights

Soon, within a month or so, an Indian woman will tear into the skies on a supersonic fighter jet all alone for the first time in the country. Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh have already scripted history by becoming the first-ever women to undergo fighter pilot training in IAF.

But the trio have only undertaken solo sorties in aircraft like the Pilatus PC-7 turboprops, Kiran and Hawk jet trainers, which are much easier to handle, during their gruelling training regime so far.

Now, Avani and Bhawana, are getting all set to fly the highly-demanding & ageing MiG-21 "Bisons", which have virtually the highest landing and take-off speed in the world at 340 kmph, by themselves at their respective airbases.

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"Avani is already undertaking sorties in a twin-seat MiG-21 Type 69 trainer with a qualified fighter instructor (QFI) at the Suratgarh airbase. Bhawana will follow suit at the Ambala airbase soon. Mohana, in turn, is still with Hawk advanced jet trainers at the Kalaikunda airbase...She will also be posted to an operational squadron in due course," said a senior officer.

A rookie fighter pilot usually undergoes around a dozen "dual-check" sorties, where he or she is taught basic flying techniques, handling, take-off and landing, before being deemed fit for solo sorties by the QFIs.

But flying jets solo does not mean they promptly turn into full-fledged fighter pilots, capable of handling the intricacies of high-voltage combat flying.

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After "consolidating their general handling" of MiG-21s in solo sorties, the women pilots will graduate to tactical flying and manoeuvres. This, in turn, will be followed by training in air-to-air and air-to-ground combat.

Once they become "fully ops (operational) by day" on the MiG-21s, the night-flying will kick-off first in the "moon phase" and then in the "dark phase" subsequently.

"A fighter pilot is declared 'fully ops' only after successfully undergoing this entire process, which takes upwards of a year," said another officer. Avani, Bhawana and Mohana, who were commissioned as flying officers into the fighter stream after basic training in June 2016, have punched a huge hole in the long-standing combat-exclusion policy for women in the Indian armed forces.

The move to induct them, even though only on "an experimental basis" for five years initially, has also propelled IAF to slowly jettison its old belief that having women pilots could disrupt "tight fighter-flying schedules" if they get married and have children.

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The second batch of two women fighter pilots - the third is "medically down" after ejecting from a Kiran trainer last November - are currently undergoing training on Hawk advanced jet trainers. It takes around Rs 15 crore to train a single fighter pilot, as was earlier reported by TOI.

No favouritism was shown to Avani and Bhawana, who were posted to MiG-21 squadrons rather than the easier-to-handle modern fighters like Sukhoi-30MKIs or Mirage-2000s. This, of course, will also ensure they undertake "air defence missions" over Indian territory in the event of war (MiG-21s are basically meant to intercept incoming enemy aircraft), and not go for strike missions deep into enemy territory.

The military brass, apart from citing "operational, practical and cultural problems", has for long maintained the country is not yet ready to deal with the grim possibility of its women being taken PoWs, tortured or raped behind enemy lines during a war.