Strategy Page looks at the differing outlooks for female pilots in Indian and Pakistani service:
The Indian Air Force does not plan to train women to be fighter pilots. Neighboring Pakistan is not much better, even though it has seven female fighter pilots. They fly F-7s, a Chinese version of the Russian MiG-21. None have been in combat yet, despite the heavy use of jet fighter-bombers in nearly a year of fighting in the tribal territories. There, the more modern F-16s are doing most of the bombing of Taliban targets. The Indian air force leaders believe that it costs so much (over $2 million) to train a fighter pilot, that they air force needs 10-15 years of active service to get that investment back. But women tend to leave the air force to have children, thus making them much more expensive fighter pilots than their male counterparts. So the Indian leadership is holding off on female fighter pilots.
Women flying Pakistani F-7s are a very recent development, part of a program that only began six years ago. Pakistan is not alone using women as fighter pilots, with China graduating its first 16 female fighter pilots this year. There are already 52 women flying non-combat aircraft, and another 545 in training. India has female military pilots, who only operate helicopters and transports.
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All the nations considering female fighter pilots, are having a hard time keeping male pilots in uniform. Too many of the men depart for more lucrative, and less stressful, careers as commercial pilots. Women may not be the solution. Currently, only about half of Indian female officers stay in past their initial five year contract. Indian women, even military pilots, are under tremendous social and family pressure to marry. Those that do may still be pilots, but married women expected to have children. The Indian Air Force provides its female officers with ten months leave for this, six months during pregnancy, and four months after delivery. The air force does all this because pilots are very expensive to train. Fuel costs the same everywhere, as are spare parts. So what India may save in lower salaries, is not enough. A good pilot costs over half a million dollars for training expenses, and requires over five years flying experience to become effective in a first line fighter (the Su-30 for India). It’s all that expensive aviation fuel that pushes the final “cost of a fighter pilot” to over $2 million. Many women are willing to take up the challenge. But they have already heard from their peers in Western air force, that motherhood and piloting can be a very exhausting combination.
