Who is Flight Lt Shivangi Singh, set to be the first woman pilot to fly Rafale?

Team Udayavani, Sep 24, 2020, 8:09 PM IST

Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh, who hails from UP’s Varanasi, is set to become India’s first woman fighter pilot to fly the Rafale aircraft that was inducted into the IAF on September 10

She is getting set to graduate to flying the omni-role Rafale after becoming fully-operational on the ageing MiG-21 ‘Bison’.

Flt Lt Singh will formally join the 17 ‘Golden Arrows’ Squadron of the 4.5-generation Rafales at the Ambala airbase after she finishes her “conversion training”, which is required when a combat pilot switches from one fighter to another.

Shivangi was commissioned into the IAF in 2017 as part of the second batch of women fighter pilots

As reported by Zee News,  she joined the prestigious Banaras Hindu University (BHU), where she was part of the 7 UP Air Squadron in the National Cadet Corps. In 2016, she joined the Air Force Academy for training.

She was an NCC cadet from BHU from 2013 to 2015 and did her BSc from Sunbeam in Bhagwanpur. In 2013, Shivangi had represented the Uttar Pradesh team in the Republic Day Parade in Delhi.