Women Submarine Hunters
The Indian Navy has versatile aviation arm, unlike the air force, it not have any women flying its array of helicopters and surveillance aircraft. But that is set to change very soon. The first of two women observers are currently undergoing training at the naval academy INS Zamorin in Kerala and will join the navy next year. The navy plans to train them as observers to detect hostile submarines and launch attacks on enemy surface and aerial targets. “Women will serve on our Tu-142 maritime patrol aircraft and could soon be flying our P-81s (a long range maritime patrol aircraft to be acquired from the US),” says navy chief Admiral Sureesh Mehta.
Women have been flying transport aircraft and helicopters in the iAi since the early 1990s but do not fly fighter aircraft, Naval observers operate onboard long range maritime patrol aircraft like the hulking Tu-142s and IL-38s which operate offshore bases and hunt submarines and interdicting enemy surface vessels and anti-submarine warfare helicopters which fly off warships. They are the principal warfare officers in an aircraft and handle aircraft weapons like torpedoes, bombs and missiles, and deploy sonabuoys to detect enemy submarines. As a senior naval official puts it, they are “in the thick of action”. The training is the first stage of ‘confidence building’ before women can fly naval aircraft.
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