Ayesha Aziz, 21, is all set to become the youngest Indian woman to fly a MIG-29 fighter jet, after getting her commercial pilot’s license last week.
“The MOST precious booklet of my life arrived yesterday and brought me happiness unbound… What once was just a dream is a reality now,” she posted on Facebook on March 31.
Ayesha plans to fly the aircraft at Sokul airbase in Russia. “I want to reach the edge of space, for which we are (in) talking terms with the Russian agency to fly the MIG-29,” she told NDTV, adding “so, that is going to be the next expedition – to fly the MIG-29 fighter jet”.
Her training to become a pilot started while she was in school and Ayesha got her student pilot licence from the Bombay Flying Club when she was 16. Among the three Indians to be chosen for an advanced space training course at NASA, Ayesha finished the two-month training in 2012.
With the aim of flying fighter jets, her message to the girls of Kashmir is that they should chase their dreams and not let anything get them down, to have goals and achieve them. Ayesha’s mother hails from Baramulla district in Jammu and Kashmir, while her father is from Mumbai.
