Scripting history, Flight Lieutenant Mohana Singh became first ever woman fighter pilot to become fully operational on Hawk advanced jet aircraft, on Friday. 

According to IAF officials, she became functional soon after she landed after an exhausting four Aircraft combat sortie at Air Force station at Kalaikunda, West Bengal. 

Singh had gone through a strenuous training program that involved flying both Air to Air combat and Air to Ground Missions.  

Practices missions which involved firing rockets, guns and dropping high caliber bombs and several Air Force Level flying exercises were also undertaken by her. 

With an experience of 500 hours of incident free flying of which 380 hours are on the Hawk Mk 132 jet, Mohana became an insipiration for several aspiring woman IAF pilots.

For the first time, women combat pilots were inducted in the Indian Air Force with defence minister Manohar Parrikar commissioning Mohana Singh, Bhawana Kanth and Avani Chaturvedi in June 2018. The trio joined the fighter stream in June 2016.

A week agao, Flight Lieutenant Bhawana Kanth became fully operational by day on MiG-21 Bison.

For Bhawana, whose father is an engineer at Indian Oil Company and mother a homemaker, flying “like a free bird” has been a childhood dream. 

She explained that this inspired her to join the IAF. Getting the opportunity to opt for the fighter stream is the “best and biggest” thing that has happened to her, she said.

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