The Russian Air Force will be training female military pilots for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, following numerous requests from young ladies.
Starting from September 10, female candidates have begun to pass qualifying tests at the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School.
The first group of female cadets will include only 15 young ladies.
A young woman undergoes a test in a Barany swivel chair while enrolling at the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School in Krasnodar, Russia.
For 15 days, enrollment candidates will live in the barracks and undergo a strict selection process.
Besides outstanding results of the unified state exam, female recruits have to demonstrate excellent physical fitness, pass psychological tests and undergo a medical examination.
The future profession is in very high demand among girls: just two weeks after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the school would enroll young women along with men, more than 150 applications were sent from across the country, including the Far East, Caucasus, Crimea and Sevastopol.
The theoretical training program will start on October 1.
Krasnodar School’s future female pilots will be ready to fly military planes by 2020. The Ministry of Defense is also suggesting that military aviatrixes might be trained for flights to the ISS after they graduate from the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School.
