Meet Lt Ananya Sharma: Fighter pilot to be part of Republic Day parade 2024
Currently posted to a Su-30MKI fighter aircraft squadron, Sharma was commissioned as a fighter pilot in December 2021.
Fighter pilot Lieutenant Ananya Sharma, daughter of Fighter pilot Air Commodore Sanjay Sharma, would be part of the Indian Air Force (IAF) tableau at the Republic Day parade this year, according to news agency ANI.
Currently posted to a Su-30MKI fighter aircraft squadron, Sharma was commissioned as a fighter pilot in December 2021. Her father, Sanjay Sharma was commissioned in the fighter stream of the IAF in 1989. He commanded a Mig-21 Sqn and a frontline fighter station.
Ananya, who has done her B Tech in Electronics and Communication, dreamt of becoming a fighter pilot like her father. She realised that her lifelong dream became a reality after the first women fighter pilots of the IAF entered service in 2016.
She was selected for training for the flying branch of the IAF and was commissioned as a fighter pilot in December 2021.
In February 2022, the Centre announced to induct women as fighter pilots. Around 20 women have been commissioned as fighter pilots after the experimental scheme for their induction into the fighter stream was implemented in 2016.
“Air Commodore Sharma and Ananya may have scripted bigger history as we haven’t heard of a father and daughter flying together in any global air force,” Air Marshal Anil Chopra (retd), director general Centre for Air Power Studies had said.
The father-daughter duo cemented their place in the country’s military aviation history by becoming the first father-daughter pair to fly in the same formation of Hawk-132 aircraft in Bidar in the year 2022. There have been several instances of fathers and sons flying fighter jets together in IAF, but never a father and a daughter.
Since their induction, the women pilots have been operating several fighter jets including Rafales, the MiG-21s, Sukhoi-30s and MiG-29 fighters. Flight Lieutenant Shivangi Singh, the country’s first Rafale pilot, was part of the IAF tableau that featured in the Republic Day parade in 2022.
While women have been inducted to fly fighter planes and serve on warships; tanks and combat positions in the infantry are still no-go zones. They were permitted to join the armed forces outside the medical stream for the first time in the year 1992.
