India’s daughters are a class apart. Over the centuries, they have shown time and again that they can scale incredible heights – on the battlefield, in the boardroom, on the playfield, in the arena, on mountains, over seas and in parliament. Now they have begun to make a mark in the cockpit.

A team of India’s daughters – Aarohi Pandit (23) and Keithair Misquitta (24) , are circling the globe in a tiny little plane called Mahi. The message they are carrying on their wings is “Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ (Save the Girl Child, Educate the Girl Child).

CPL holders trained at the Bombay Flying Club and India’s first women Light Sport Aircraft (LSA) license holders, they embarked on the world’s first circumnavigation in a motorglider by an all-woman team on July 30, 2018.

Taking off from Patiala, India and flying over Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Serbia, Slovenia, Germany, France, UK, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland and Canada, the expedition is more than halfway across the world.

Aarohi and Keithair are the first women in the world to fly an LSA from India to Greenland. Aarohi also holds the distinction of becoming the first Indian woman pilot to fly an LSA solo over the Atlantic Ocean.

Phase II of the WE! Expedition will take Aarohi Pandit over Canada, USA, Russia, China and South East Asia, before she’s joined by Keithair for the last few legs in India. Aarohi will navigate treacherous mountain ranges, oceans, steppes, the tundra, glaciers, deserts and tropical forests and each day will truly be a test of the human spirit. Once successful, a world record will be made by these brave Indian pilots. It will also be the first ever Indian civilian circumnavigation by a non-commercial aircraft.