Sindhu first woman to fly Tejas

Tribune News Service 

Bengaluru, February 23 

From flying helicopters and fighter jets, to being air traffic controllers and doing para-jumps, it was literally a women’s day at Aero India here as the Ministry of Defence had listed it to celebrate women achievers in aerospace.

The two hours of morning flying — 10 am to noon — at the Yelahanka air base was dominated by women.

Badminton star PV Sindhu became the first woman to fly the Light Combat Aircraft, the Tejas, with the official Twitter handle of DRDO, the designer of the plane, sending out congratulations to the shuttler, who did a 40- minute sortie. It was a medium altitude flight, IAF officials later said. 

IAF said a flight like this would have Sindhu experiencing 4 to 5 G-force. The maximum for humans is 9. G-force is the gravitational force experienced by pilots when a fighter jet takes off and flies at sonic speeds. 

In the past three days, Squadron Leader Sneha Kulkarni has been flying in her helicopter as part of ‘Sarang’  — IAF’s dare-devil  aerobatic display team.  For the special days, the air traffic control was also handed over to the women officers — Squadron Ldr Siju Unnikrishan, Squadron Ldr Kanupriya Rana, Flight Lt Angel Dutta and Flight Lt Kriti Bhatnagar.

Dressed in orange overalls, six women officers, led by Wing Cdr Asha Jyothirmai, did a para jump. Other officers on the team were Wing Cdr Sangita Paulraj, Squadron Ldr Seema Sheoran, Squadron Ldr Isha Gill, Flight Lt Remya and Flying Officer Tuhina Gaur.

Flying Officer Mohana Singh, who is among the first three women fighter pilots, flew the Hawk jet.  Three IAF pilots who fly the Dornier surveillance plane —  Squadron Ldr Kamaljeet Kaur and her co-pilot Squadron Ldr Rakhi Bhandari — did an over flight. Squadron Ldr Shruti Chauhan flew another Dornier. Chetak helicopter was flown by Flight Lt Amandeep Kaur, Flight Lt Sindhu Reddy and Squadron Ldr Khushboo Gupta.