New Delhi: Squadron Leader Bhawana Kanth of the Indian Air Force (IAF), who was among the first batch of women fighter pilots in the country, has achieved another milestone. She has become the first woman fighter pilot to complete the prestigious Fighter Combat Leader (FCL) course at the Tactics and Air Combat Development Establishment (TACDE) in Gwalior. Its instructors include some of the service’s most experienced fighter pilots and controllers. Squadron Leader Kanth hails from Bihar’s Darbhanga district and is an engineering graduate who joined the IAF in June 2016 as part of India’s first batch of women fighter pilots. In 2019, she became the first Indian woman to be cleared for undertaking daytime fighter combat missions.