India's first woman pilot to fly a Rafale fighter jet at Republic Day parade

|HT|

India's first woman pilot to fly a Rafale fighter jet, Shivangi Singh, was part of the Indian Air Force tableau at the Republic Day parade on Wednesday. Shivangi is the second female fighter jet pilot to be part of the IAF tableau, after Bhawna Kanth, who became the first female fighter jet pilot to be part of the IAF tableau. The theme of this year's IAF tableau was Indian Air Force, transforming for the future. Following the march past in 12 rows and 8 columns, the tableau came on Rajpath showing scaled-down models of Rafale fighter jet, indigenously developed light combat helicopter (LCH) and 3D surveillance radar Aslesha MK-1. It also featured a scaled-down model of MiG-21 aircraft that played a major role in the 1971 war. Shivangi Singh joined the Indian Air Force in 2017 and was commissioned in the IAF's second batch of women fighter pilots.

Before flying Rafale, Shivangi flew MiG-21 Bison aircraft.

Shivangi is from Varanasi and is part of the IAF's Golden Arrows squadron based out of Ambala in Punjab.

In 2020, Shivangi Singh became the first woman fighter pilot to fly Rafale after she was selected as a Rafale pilot following a stringent selection process.

The first batch of Rafale fighter jets arrived on July 29, 2020, nearly four years after India signed an inter-governmental agreement with France to procure 36 aircraft at a cost of ₹59,000 crore. So far, 32 Rafale jets have been delivered to the IAF and four are expected by April this year.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)