'I am stoked': What it feels like to fly through a solar eclipse

Millions of observers will watch next month’s American solar eclipse from the ground. But a few lucky Nasa flight crews will get a much closer view.

When a total solar eclipse crosses North America on Monday 8 April, an estimated 31 million people will be in its path – watching. Many more are likely to travel for the event, which will be visible across large swathes of the US and Mexico.

All the best planning in the world can be scuppered by weather, however, as anyone who remembers the August 1999 eclipse in the UKwill tell you, when clouds blotted out the show. So, if you want to make sure you see a total solar eclipse, which only falls over a given location once every 375 years on average, what’s the best way to do it?

Take to the skies and fly above the clouds, of course.