Shahid flies a Tornado

Pilots the combat aircraft while shooting on location in Edinburgh

On Tuesday, Shahid Kapoor flew a Tornado battle aircraft at the Royal Airforce airbase in Leuchars near Edinburgh while shooting for his father's Mausam. Shahid plays an airforce officer in the film.

Director Pankaj Kapur felt that shooting on a restricted airbase area on a real plane would considerably enhance the authenticity of the aerial shots considering the hero is an air force officer. Shahid trained to fly a plane before shooting began.

A Tornado aircraft getting ready for take-off

The whole stint was completed in half a day with utmost caution and discretion. Permission to shoot at the strictly prohibited airbase was obtained after much persuasion and pulling of strings.

Says a source from the unit, "At first, we somehow managed to get permission to shoot at the airbase. Then we got greedy and we wanted Shahid to actually fly the Tornado. That was tougher than we thought."

The shoot at the Edinburgh airbase will now be incorporated into the sequences that would be shot later in August at an airforce base near Hyderabad.