veiled4allah: Pakistani women fighter pilots veiled4allah: Pakistani women fighter pilotsThe Pakistan Air Force (PAF) academy has been all-male for more than 55 years - but now it is going through major change. Women are now allowed to enrol 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...
...The head of the PAF academy, Air Vice Marshal Inam Ullah Khan, admits they had to take certain cultural sensitivities into account.
But he says allowing women to enrol has been a good experience, and some of the female cadets have done better than expected.
The 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 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.
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