speed maneuvers, a specially designed camera was  attached to a Mirage 2000 aircraft which then tailed the star  planes as they flew, for only another Mirage 2000 could actually  fly at speeds that matched the planes being filmed. The traditional  film camera, which was specially constructed with lenses facing  forward, backward, to the side, and downward, was installed inside  an empty fuel pod and built by Dassault, the aircraft consortium  which constructed the Mirage 2000. Using a digital HD camera had  been considered early on, but because of its size, it was simply too  large to be squeezed into the tank. Because of space requirements,  the pod camera could only hold 4 minutes of film, which had to be  specially shielded from the elements and sealed in an airtight  compartment to prevent the pressure and temperature differences at  altitude from damaging it. In addition, the camera could not be  controlled by hand, as it was located within the tank, nor could it  be controlled electronically by wire, as the tank had to be easily  detachable from the plane so it could be swapped from one Mirage  2000 to another on refueling to prevent the daily shooting schedule  from falling behind. Thus, a special radio control system was  devised, so that the pilot of the Mirage 2000 could activate the  camera at will. However, this too had many problems to work out, as  the radio frequency could not interfere with the regular operations  of the aircraft, nor could it possibly jam air