Special photos of the first Pakistani women as air force pilots wowed women across Asia today. Do you know, giving their best in every mission, women officers are present in all the branches of Indian Air Force as well? As an officer with the Indian Air Force, women lead and manage, and are posted either as a pilot, navigator, technical or ground duty officer in any one of the Air Force bases.

The Indian air force was established in 1932.
In 1991 the government approved the induction of women into non-technical Air Force officer billets, such as administration, logistics, accounting, education, and meteorology. In 1992 opportunities for “pioneer women officers” were opened in the areas of transportation, helicopters, and navigation, and the first group of 13 women cadets entered the Air Force Academy. During their flight training, they qualified on HPT-32 and Kiran aircraft to earn their Air Force commissions. After completing ten months’ training, five of the seven successful course graduates received further training on various transport aircraft.
In fact, lately in Bangalore, Yelahanka and Dundigal, women in the Indian Air Force have created a gender issue for the government with nearly half the girls in training performing consistently better than the men! Women walking into IAF training schools want to be fighter pilots. There are 1.1 lakh personnel in the Air Force of whom only 700 are women. Just how capable women are proving to be unfolds slowly in the transport aircraft training establishment at Yelahanka, near Bangalore, and in the Air Force Academy in Dundigal, near Hyderabad. Air Vice-Marshal Dhiraj Kukreja, an AN-32 pilot himself, concurs. “We have a girl in the academy football team that represents us in the Bakshi Cup tournament. In the interim flying training plan, we are authorised to take 15 women but more may be taken on the basis of performance.”
Indeed, women are coming into their own when it comes to charting unfamiliar territory in the skies.
{{/usCountry}}Indeed, women are coming into their own when it comes to charting unfamiliar territory in the skies.
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