Chamarajanagara’s Aashritha V Olety is India’s 1st woman flight test engineer

Team Udayavani, May 24, 2021, 9:22 AM IST

Chamarajanagara: Squadron Leader Aashritha V Olety becomes the first female flight test engineer in the country.

Aashritha, who hails from Chamarajanagara’s Kollegal did her engineering from MVJ College of Engineering in Bengaluru.

She was part of the 43rd Flight Test Course of Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE). Aashritha recently graduated from the Air Force Test Pilots School (AFTPS) which is part of the ASTE, a premier unit of the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Squadron Leader Aashritha V Olety is the first and only woman in the IAF qualified for the role, and as a flight test engineer, she evaluates aircraft and airborne systems before their induction into the armed forces, said one of the officials.

Meanwhile, Aashritha’s family members said that there are only about 275 graduates to ever clear this course ever since the course inception in 1973 and that she has become the first female officer in the history of IAF to ever clear this course after strenuous training.

Excluding the medical wing in which women have been serving for decades, the army accounts for 6,807 women officers, the IAF 1,607 and the navy has 704 women officers. In percentage terms, women still form a small part of the military — 0.56% of the army, 1.08% of the air force and 6.5% of the navy.