MiG-29s missed the eclipse

Romanian MiG-29 Fulcrums stationed at Mihail Kogalniceanu AFB, 25km NE of Constanta were especially equipped with digital systems and optical scientific instruments to observe the eclipse in the 11th of august, 1999.
Unfortunately, the heavy cloud carpet which covered the base area and much of Romania's theritorry did not let the MiG29s take-off.
Cloud masses like that have inside of them huge super-powerful airflows which can cut whole aircraft in pieces in a few seconds. Flying into clouds is forbidden in Romania in all the areas of flight (military, civilian, utility and sports flight), and also in the 1950s, a Romanian MiG15 which accidentally got into one of these clouds had its entire wing cut in two.
For those who don't know, the MiG15's wing is a very solid pure-steel wing, with a link made of pure steel and almoust 1m wide. That link was cut in two like a piece of cheese by the airflows of that cloud.
There was a big disappoitment because of those clouds, but the entire Romanian Air Force was in the air that day, so the specialits could however film and analize the eclipse from "up there" inside two-seater MiG-21 Lancers, MiG29 Fulcrums, MiG21 Fishbeds and MiG23 Floggers, and also from a romanian C-130 Hercules. The images from the C-130 were transmitted around the world, but, of course, while in the corner of other images channels like the Discovery Channel, CNN and euronews showed the country and the type of the plane from which they were filmed, the images which came from Romania had no marks at all, like our air force had never filmed the eclipse. All the images I have seen on CNN were marked as "Bulgaria" or even "Hungary", but the ones from the Romanian C-130 were marked as "plane images". Like the eclipse never happened in here, but it was in Bulgaria or something !? Lack of professionalism ? Definetly. Discrimination ? No. More like a cheap form of xenofobia.

© Sorin A Crâsmarelu

august 1999