Women Fighter Pilot Pakistan

Pakistan Women are now allowed to enroll on its aerospace engineering and fighter pilot programmes and are doing rather well.To the great surprise of many men, some of the female recruits will soon start flying jet-engine planes.Male cadets have to come to terms with the fact that masculinity itself is no longer a condition for reaching this prestigious institute. There are 10 women in two batches in the flying wing of the academy. Many more are competing with men in the engineering and aerospace wing.

Senior air force officials point out those bringing Pakistan women into armed forces combat units has been a difficult decision in many countries. In Pakistan the challenges of doing so were even bigger. It's not just about size or strength - cultural and religious matters were also to be taken into account. The PAF academy maintains a degree of segregation between genders.

Although women march should-to-shoulder with their male counterparts during early-morning parade, some parts of the training, particularly physical exercises are carried out separately."It's quite important that we maintain this level of segregation, mainly because we are a Muslim society," says squadron leader Shazia Ahmed. A psychologist by training, and in charge of the female cadets, she says "in some ways it also gives these girls the much required confidence before they take up the bigger challenges". But there is no compromise on standards - the Pakistan women must achieve the same levels of performance as the men, or face being dropped from the programme.

For the moment it seems the few who have joined the ranks are doing extremely well. And if that continues, when the current batch passes out in a year these cadets will become the first-ever women fighter pilots in Pakistan's history.Women fighter pilots of Pakistan includes Ambreen Gul .she was 20-years old and living in Karachi. Her mother wanted her to be a doctor. She remembers her reaction when she told her she wants to fly. "She was like: 'You're a girl,'" says Gul. "How will you do it? How will you fly?" The following day Gul took the first step in proving her mother wrong. She was among the first in line at the recruitment center.For nearly six decades it was only men who had flown Pakistan's fighter jets. Today Gul is one of seven Pakistan women who are trained and ready to fly Pakistan's F-7 supersonic fighter jets.