The first all-woman team of six skydivers of the Indian Air Force will make its official debut on Saturday at the Hindon Air Base near New Delhi during the annual Air Force Day parade.

The team which underwent a two-year gruelling training in India and the US will jump out of an AN-32 transport aircraft at 0805 hours on Saturday and will go through a series of mid-air formations before touching down the tarmac.

“This will be the debut jump of the first all-woman sky diving team of the IAF. We will jump from a height of 8000 ft and touch down the tarmac seven minutes later during which we will go through star-formation in the sky,” team leader Wing Commander Asha Jyothirmai told the news agency.

Married to an IAF skydiver Wing Commander E K N Swaroop, and a mother of two kids, Jyothirmai joined the Air Force in 1997 in accounts branch and started pursuing sky-diving two years later in 1999.

“In the last 11 years, I have performed a total 560 jumps. Every member has gone through a series of tough training to build this team. The youngest member here has got two years of sky-diving experience with a total 135 jumps,” she said.

After going through initial training in sky-diving formation at Agra and several other Air Force bases in the country, the team attended an advance course in free-fall and formation sky-diving at Sky Dive Arizona in US.

On Saturday, the team will give its first salute to IAF Chief Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne soon after touching down.