 
 
From learning the basics of an aircraft to flying it.
Avani and Bhawana are now training to fly the MIG-21 BISON.
While Mohana advances to perfect her flying maneuvers on the Hawks.
My relationship with this aircraft has been the longest in my course.
The reason being I got posted on the same aircraft after finishing my training.
Initially I had  double thoughts,
thinking I don’t know what my future holds in the same squadron in which I was trained.
But later on I’ve realised, that the quantum of flying that I am getting on this aircraft
the amount of learning that I can get…
I have flown the same phases earlier also as a trainee
but as a staff it gives you a different perspective.
You get more and more proficient on the same phase if you’re consolidated on the same aircraft.
There’s nothing that this aircraft can’t do,
if you talk about the avionics, it offers the best of class avionics.
Because of the systems on board of  this aircraft, we’ve been able to fly various phases like we’ve flown strike,
we’ve flown interdiction on this aircraft, you can do the entire navigation on the systems.
It is capable of doing all that.
Flying the MIG-21 itself demands a lot from the pilot.
The MIG 21 really challenges the best out of any aviator
The MIG-21 BISON, a supersonic jet is an interceptor and a fighter aircraft fitted with an advance radar system.
This legendary single cockpit war machine was introduced in the Indian Air Force in 1964.
It travels at the speed of 2 MACH, which is twice the speed of sound.
Single cockpit, single engine..
so when you approach during landing you don't have that much time to make your parameters correct
Flying this aircraft at low speeds can cause trouble during landing.
The skills which you require to land this aircraft are obviously more demanding.
But before they can fly solo,
Avani and Bhawana have to prove themselves capable of flying this war horse of the Indian Air Force.
They have to spend hours practising on the type-69 trainer and the simulator .
Simulator training for a fighter pilot is very important,
because you cannot be in air and simulate every possible emergency
because that time flight safety is important.
A simulator is very important thing in terms of preparing a person for the sortie.
In terms of, where in you get to practice all your procedures,
all your checks if you’re new to the aircraft or you’re new to certain phase.
It is not only a practical exam, it is also a means of carry out tactics because aviation is expensive.
It is very important to build muscle memories,
come and sit in the simulator and practice all the checks
and fly the entire sortie sitting over here so that we don’t miss out things in air.
We’ve been given a simulation of all kinds of disorientation that can take place, especially at night.
There’s something known as the pilot reaction time, as a trainee it’s the longest.
You take time to trust yourself
and that is mainly because of the reason that your experience is less on that aircraft.
A 100% preparation on ground would I would say just allow you to give 50% in the air
so it has to be more than that always.
So the more you can get the experience from a machine
the more confident you become and the faster you’re to take any action.
No matter how experienced a fighter pilot is
they must periodically undertake simulator sorties to sharpen their instinctive flight responses.
The life of an Indian fighter pilot is not just about flying jet
they’re also officers who will one day be on the helm of one of the largest forces in the world.
A squadron is not just something that is professional,
a squadron is like family, you have the CO you have the flight commander, your seniors and immediate seniors
and juniors so it’s like a mix of all the levels of seniority that you can think of.
In academy there was a carefree environment where in you get grilled day in day out,
but then all you had to do was learn.
Eventually as you grow you have more of responsibilities when you start understanding that
what all this training is for and what responsibilities the government has put on your shoulders.
So that ways
things have changed definitely in squadron.
It’s a demanding job
Quantum of the variety of the work that you get to do in this.
So there are lot of challenges, we have to put in a lot of hard work on ground.
Being an officer of Indian Air Force you are supposed to carry out certain duties.
We spend close to 10 - 12 hours in the squadron and we finish our work generally there.
You have to get briefed, debriefed and go for the sortie missiona
and carry out the mission as was planned to stand up to the standards
Duty, integrity and warfare acumen
are important aspects of fighter pilot,
but it requires maintaining fitness levels and strength
to be able to accomplish missions and deal with that exclusive G-force.
Flying cannot be done without physical stamina,
so you have to take care of your physique as well,
have to keep your weight in-check, you have to keep things in mind
that are going to affect your medical conditions.
For fitness I follow a 30 minutes cycling routine daily
and sometimes accompanied with gym doing some weights
because that is very helpful for fighter pilots in terms of G tolerance
and what happens is during G tolerance you really need your heart to pump as fast as it could,
so you need to be used to higher heartbeat
A lot of cardio is not advised for a fighter pilot because
then the ability of your heart again to pump more during G force keeps on reducing
that is why we go for weights training.
It’s like survival of the fittest like we say, the fitter the better.
One of the major issues of fighter pilot faces during the sortie is G force or the Gravitational force of the earth.
If the G force that keeps us on the ground at 1G,
then a fighter pilot’s body in the sky experiences upto 9G in flight.
Let’s say you’re driving a car, let’s say 80-100 kmph
and you see a sharp turn and you turn without rolling your speed.
So, in that turn don’t you find yourself sway away to one side out of your control
then you have to actually try and come back to your main position.
Let's say you’re pulling 2Gs and your weight is 60 kgs
now what you’re experiencing is a force of equivalent to 120
so when you try to, let's say you’re at 5Gs and you’re trying to lift your hand
your weight is into five times of what your hand weight was
and in such situation just to lift up your hand and flying is quite a big challenge.
So to move my hand also and to move my head also it needs a lot of muscle strength
so under gravity your body movement gets restricted.
You might think one - one and a half G how does that matter?
It matters a lot because in that moment that one second can make or break the set.
Every aspect from on ground training to flight simulations and fitness.
All help the women prepare for the challenges of flying jet aircrafts.
For now the biggest hurdle is flying one of these aircrafts solo.
