Meet Flight Lieutenant Bhawana Kanth - 1st female fighter pilot to participate in Republic Day parade!

On the upcoming Republic Day, another milestone will be reached as Flight lieutenant Bhawana Kanth will be a part of the Republic Day parade who will be the first woman fighter pilot to take part in India's biggest ceremonial event on January 26. She will be a part of the Indian Air Force's (IAF) tableau that will showcase mock-ups of the light combat aircraft, light combat helicopter, and the Sukhoi-30 fighter plane.

 

Speaking about being able to be a part of the Republic Day parade, she said, "I had been watching the Republic Day Parade on television and now now I am going to be a part of it. It is a matter of pride for me."

 

 

Bhawana is currently posted at an airbase in Rajasthan where she flies the MiG-21 Bison fighter plane. She is also one of the first women fighter pilots in the IAF. She, along with Avani Chaturvedi and Mohana Singh, was inducted into the IAF as the first women fighter pilots in 2016. They were formally commissioned by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. She was one of the first three women to get selected for the program after the government decided to open the fighter stream in the Indian Air Force for women on an experimental basis.

 

 

 

Hailing from Darbhanga in Bihar, Bhawana was born and brought up in the Refinery Township, Begusarai, where her father worked as an engineer in IOCL. She did her schooling from Barauni Refinery DAV Public School and completed her bachelor of engineering in medical electronics from BMS College of Engineering in Bengaluru.

 

After clearing Stage I training, she got the opportunity to opt for the fighter stream. Kanth had said after her induction in the IAF, she recalled her first experience of the spin solo on fighter aircraft Kiran. She had entered the aircraft into a spin and recovered it all by herself at 20,000 feet, doubt started creeping into her mind as to what if the aircraft didn’t recover.

 

"I told myself that if I don’t do it now, I will always be afraid of it. I spun the aircraft and to my surprise, the spin was more vicious or so it seemed. But the fighter pilot in me took over and I told myself come what may I will recover. And the aircraft recovered from spin and so did my confidence," she had said.

 

Before getting posted at an airbase in Rajasthan, Bhawana had completed her six months long stage-II training on Kiran Intermediate Jet Trainers at Hakimpet Air Force Station in Hyderabad in June 2016. She then became a Flying Officer at the Air Force Academy in Dundigal. Following this, in May 2019, she became the first female fighter pilot in India to qualify to undertake combat missions.

 

 

Just like Captain Tania Shergill who is the first Indian woman Parade Adjutant to lead an all-man contingent at an Army Day function in the Indian Army, Bhawana will be scripting history for being the first female fighter pilot to participate in the Republic Day parade. This has resulted in inspiring every woman of the country to choose defence services as a career.