Singh, one of India’s first women fighter pilots, was previously serving in the No. 3 ‘Cobras’ Squadron at the Nal fighter base near Bikaner and flying the MiG-21 Bison aircraft
Squadron Leader Mohana Singh has become India’s first woman Tejas fighter pilot, with the Indian Air Force assigning her to the No. 18 ‘Flying Bullets’ Squadron based at Naliya in Gujarat, officials aware of the matter said on Wednesday.
Singh, one of India’s first women fighter pilots, was previously serving in the No. 3 ‘Cobras’ Squadron at the Nal fighter base near Bikaner and flying the MiG-21 Bison aircraft. “In IAF, we have embraced gender equality in the truest sense,” she earlier said.
She recently took part in Tarang Shakti 2024, the biggest multilateral air combat exercise to be hosted by India. The drills, in which 28 global air forces participated, concluded in Jodhpur last week.
IAF, the world’s fourth largest air force, currently accounts for around 20 women fighter pilots. The service opened its fighter stream to women, a watershed in India’s military history, in 2016. The air force has opened all frontiers for women and is giving them opportunities on a par with their male counterparts.