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Woman pilot trailblazer eyes space
Cape Times
|May 07, 2025
THE excited little girl who first touched a plane two decades ago is now flying high as the face of India’s fast-modernising military and its only woman Rafale fighter pilot.
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“This is where my adventure began,” Shivangi Singh, 29, said at the Air Force Museum in New Delhi, recalling her first visit as a child when she “gawked” and “immediately knew that I wanted to become a pilot”.
Women were first inducted into the fighter pilot ranks in 2015, two decades after they were allowed to join the Indian Air Force (IAF).
“There have been many of us,” said Singh, a lieutenant. “This not only reflects modernisation (of our society) but also the fact that we can now realise our dreams.”
Singh, who is married to a fellow fighter pilot, is the first Indian woman to fly the French-made single-seat Rafale jets.
New Delhi last month signed a multi-billion dollar deal for 26 of the aircraft from Dassault Aviation, adding to 36 already ordered.
This story is from the May 07, 2025 edition of Cape Times.
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