Flight Lt. Mohana Singh becomes India’s first woman to fly Hawk jet
Singh and two other women officers joined the fighter stream in June 2016
New Delhi: Flight Lt. Mohana Singh has become the first woman fighter pilot to be fully operational by day on a Hawk advanced jet aircraft.
According to an official statement released on Friday, the lady officer landed after a gruelling four aircraft combat sortie at the Kalaikunda Air Force station in West Bengal, which was the last syllabus sortie to become fully operational by day on the Hawk jets.
Singh and two other women officers — Bhawana Kanth and Avani Chaturvadi — joined the fighter stream in June 2016.
Last week, Flight Lt. Bhawana Kanth became the first daytime woman fighter pilot to fly a MiG-21 Bison.
Flight Lt. Singh’s training involved flying both air-to-air combat and air-to-ground missions.
She undertook many practice missions which involved firing of rockets, guns and dropping high calibre bombs. She 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.