Indian Air Force tableau featured first woman Rafale fighter jet pilot Shivangi Singh at the Republic Day parade on Wednesday. She is the second woman fighter jet pilot to be featured in the IAF tableau.
In 2021, Flight Lieutenant Bhawna Kanth became the first female fighter jet pilot to be part of the IAF tableau.
The theme of this year’s IAF tableau was Indian Air Force, transforming for the future. Following the march past in 12 rows and 8 columns, the tableau came on Rajpath showing scaled down models of Rafale fighter jet, indigenously developed light combat helicopter (LCH) and 3D surveillance radar Aslesha MK-1. It also featured a scaled-down model of MiG-21 aircraft that played a major role in the 1971 war.
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Singh, who is from Varanasi, joined the IAF in 2017 and was commissioned in the IAF’s second batch of women fighter pilots. She had been flying MiG-21 Bison aircraft before flying the Rafale.
She is part of the IAF’s Golden Arrows squadron based out of Ambala in Punjab.
The first batch of Rafale fighter jets arrived on July 29, 2020, nearly four years after India signed an inter-governmental agreement with France to procure 36 aircraft at a cost of Rs 59,000 crore. So far, 32 Rafale jets have been delivered to the IAF and four are expected by April this year.
(With inputs from agencies)
