Boeing Jet Draws a Gigantic Outline of a Dreamliner Over USA
If you have to do a nearly 18-hour live engine test, why not do something fun?
Aviation fanatics are geeking out over a Boeing Dreamliner’s recent actions over the United States. On Wednesday afternoon, a Boeing 787-800 Dreamliner took off from Seattle on a test flight. Flight tracking apps show the Dreamliner followed a flight path over the USA that draws an outline of the Dreamliner.
The flight served as an endurance test for the 787’s Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine, which is undergoing certification. In total, the Dreamliner was in the air for exactly 18 hours before landing at 9:38 AM local time at Boeing field. Also, it covered nearly 16,000 miles.
“Rather than fly in random patterns, the test team got creative, flying a route that outlined a 787-8 in the skies over 22 states,” Boeing explained in a statement.
The front of the outlined plane goes into Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. The right wing stretched through Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa. The back of the plane touched Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. The left wing occupied tiny parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. Texas, however, was the state with the biggest chunk of the plane.
Indeed, this isn’t the first time that Boeing has used careful flight planning to map out a public message. In February, Boeing flew a 737-MAX, a long range variant of the 737 workhorse, across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana to spell the word MAX. That flight was performed as an illustration and promotion of Boeing’s new long haul capabilities with the 737-MAX.
According to Flightradar24, a site that tracks live air traffic globally, reasons for unusual flight patterns can include pilots conducting aerial surveys, calibrating instrument landing systems, holding for airport congestion, avoiding bad weather and, yes, just having fun.
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