NASA to Use Converted Bombers to Chase Totality

[Binary_Bark]

In a classic swords-to-plowshares move, two converted WB-57 aircraft flown by NASA’s Airborne Science Program will greet the shadow of the Moon as it rushes across the contiguous United States on Monday, August 21st on a daring mission of science.

“We are going to be observing the total solar eclipse with two aircraft, each carrying infrared and visible light cameras taking high definition video,” Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Principal Investigator on the project Amir Caspi told Universe Today. “These will be the highest quality observations to date (of the solar corona) of their kind, looking for fast dynamic motion in the solar corona.”

Total solar eclipses provide researchers with a unique opportunity to study the solar corona – the ghostly glow of the Sun’s outer atmosphere seen only during totality. NASA plans a battery of experiments during the eclipse, including plans to intercept the Moon’s shadow using two aircraft near the point of greatest totality over Carbondale, Illinois. Flying out of Ellington Field near Houston Texas and operated by NASA’s Johnson Spaceflight Center, NASA is the only remaining operator of the WB-57 aircraft.

Flying at an altitude of 50,000 feet, the aircraft will intercept the 70 mile wide shadow of the Moon. The shadow will be moving at 1,400 miles per hour – twice the speed of sound – versus the WB-57 aircraft’s max speed of 470 miles per hour. The flight will extend the length of totality from the 2 minutes 40 seconds seen on the ground, to a total of about 8 minutes between the two aircraft.

The two converted WB-57 Canberra tactical bombers will track the eclipse using DyNAMITE (Day Night Airbourne Motion Imagery for Terrestrial Environments), two tandem gimbal-mounted 8.7-inch imagers, one for visible light and one for infrared. these are located in the nose of the aircraft and will shoot 30 frames per second.

Read Full Article: https://www.universetoday.com/136384/nasa-use-converted-bombers-chase-totality/

 

[Arthur]

Yikes. Seriously modded intakes/engines on the plane.

 

[furpile]

Yikes. Seriously modded intakes/engines on the plane.

I suspected it had something to do with their high altitude flying. Seems this was a special vatiant with different engines that was built as a high altitude recon plane.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin/General_Dynamics_RB-57F_Canberra

Interesting that Nasa is still flying them.

 

[Arthur]

Ja, I remember the SAAF ones, flown by 12 Squadron. Before the Rinderpest.