Who Is Shivangi Singh? First Woman Rafale Fighter Jet Pilot Featured On IAF Tableau At Republic Day Parade

Shivangi Singh who comes from Varanasi joined the Indian Air Force in 2017 and was commissioned as the second batch of women fighter pilots.

Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh at the Indian Air Force (IAF) tableau. (ANI)

New Delhi: 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 first woman fighter pilot on the Rafale combat aircraft, Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh at the Indian Air Force (IAF) tableau today.#RepublicDayParade pic.twitter.com/vXDFVlAI12

— ANI (@ANI) January 26, 2022

Meet Shivangi Singh First Woman Rafale Fighter Jet Pilot

Singh hails from Varanasi and joined the Indian Air Force in 2017, she 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 theme of this year's tableau is 'Indian Air Force transforming for the future'. Scaled-down models of Rafale fighter jet indigenously developed light combat helicopter (LCH) and 3D surveillance radar Aslesha MK-1 were part of the float.

It also featured a scaled-down model of MiG-21 aircraft that played a major role in the 1971 war in which India defeated Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh, as well as a model of India's first indigenously developed aircraft Gnat.

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.