IAF women pilots break altitude barrier

New Delhi: Continuing with their sparkling achievements, IAF women pilots have now begun to go where no women has gone before. They are flying military cargo aircraft sorties to forbidding high-altitude forward areas like Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) and Leh.

“Since December, some women IAF pilots are flying sorties of AN-32 medium-lift aircraft to DBO, the highest advanced landing ground (makeshift airstrip) in the world at 16,500-feet, and IL-76 heavy-lift aircraft to Leh,” said a senior officer.
These “women air warriors” have often beaten their male counterparts in military aviation skills to get where they have reached by the sheer dint of their hard work and “challenging attitudes”. While women pilots are not yet allowed to fly fighter jets, they have been taking to the skies in helicopters and transport aircraft in IAF for over a decade now.
Of the around 950 women officers in IAF, around 70 are pilots. Take Squadron Leader Teji Uppal, who has created history by being the first woman pilot to land at DBO, which overlooks the strategic Karakoram Pass and only a few km away from the China-occupied Aksai Chin area.
Commissioned in December, 2002, after passing ahead of many of her male counterparts at the IAF Academy, Squadron Leader Uppal attained the “B-Green” category, which makes her “a totally independent captain to operate in the treacherous mountains of Himalayas” in a short span of six years.
25/01/12 Times of India