Flight Lt. Mohana Singh Creates History, becomes First Woman Fighter Pilot to Fly Hawk Advanced Fighter Jet

New Delhi: Flight Lieutenant Mohana Singh made history when she became the first woman fighter pilot to be qualified to undertake missions by day on Hawk advanced jet aircraft. Singh, along with two other women Bhawana Kanth and Avani Chaturvedi, had joined the fighter stream in June 2016.

As per the statement by the Indian Air Force (IAF), Flt Lt Mohana Singh landed after a gruelling 4 Aircraft combat sortie at Air Force station, Kalaikunda, West Bengal.

The female fighter pilot achieved the incredible feat after receiving rigorous training involving both Air to Air combat and Air to Ground missions.

“She has undertaken many practice missions which involved firing of rockets, guns and dropping high calibre 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,” the statement read.

Singh along with two other girls Bhawna Kanth and Avani Chaturvedi joined the fighter stream in June 2016. Only recently, Flt Lt Bhawana Kanth became fully operational by day on MiG-21 Bison.

Last year in February, Flying Officer Avani Chaturvedi became the first Indian woman to fly a fighter aircraft solo when she flew a MiG-21 bison.

India joins the ranks of countries such as China, Pakistan, Israel, France, Turkey, Greece and the US where women are allowed to fly fighter jets.

Source: TNN

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