Shooting the Sun With IAF MiG-25

Shooting the Sun With IAF MiG-25'RB'

                 

Indian Air Force (IAF) achieved a noble milestone by using the MiG-25 to shot the sun during the total solar eclipse of 24th October 1995. A upward looking camera was fitted in one of the two cockpits with a pilot training the camera towards sun while the other pilot flew the aircraft on course at exactly the speed that the sun races across the surface of the earth. Though it sounds simple it required rehearsals on the ground and careful navigation and geometry to track the sun exactly to capture this phenomena in the few minutes it occurred without error. On the ground the 'total' phase of a solar eclipse viewed from a point on terra firma may last only a several seconds but when you fly as fast as the sun moves across the earth and track the course of the umbra across the central axis of the eclipse you can film a total eclipse for a minute or two or more. Also from the stratosphere the view is much clearer than from the ground.

Credit - V.Narayan, Team-BHP.com