New Delhi (PTI): The Indian Air Force will join the scientific community in carrying out tests and filming the solar eclipse on July 22 this year by flying a fighter jet and a transport aircraft that day.

A Mirage-2000 fighter jet and an AN-32 medium lift transport aircraft would be flown by IAF pilots to assist scientists from Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous body of the Department of Science and Technology, which will carry out the tests, an IAF spokesperson said today.

"While the Mirage would fly out from Gwalior, the AN-32 will fly from either Bagdogra in West Bengal or from Patna.

The aircraft will fly to Agra, when the experiments and the filming of the total solar eclipse will be carried out," he said.

Scientists from Noida-based Vigyan Prasar, Udaipur-based Solar Observatory and Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Astrophysics would participate in the experiments and the filming.

"Four scientists from these institutions and six-member crew from Doordarshan will fly on board the AN-32 and they would do the experiments and filming by keeping the rear ramp of the aircraft open. Since they will be flying at very high altitudes, oxygen masks would be used during the flight," the spokesperson said.

The IAF teams, scientists and the DD crew members would reach the air base from where the AN-32 would fly out a day or two earlier and would be taken out on a trial flying on July 21, the spokesperson said.

Under an agreement with Vigyan Prasar, the Air Force School at Gwalior IAF base would be assisted in establishing a Astronomy club, apart from providing them astronomy kits and solar viewers by the scientific institution.

The total solar eclipse this year will be the last for this generation, as the next would happen 80 years later.

The eclipse will be visible in parts of India from Gulf of Cambay in Gujarat in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east. The eclipse corridor will pass close to Gwalior air base.