In the news:
Originally published Friday, February 10, 2012 at 8:28 PM
'Writing out' a 787 flight plan never so much fun for Boeing pilots
A 787 flight-test team "coordinated with the many air traffic control centers, choosing the routing to avoid restricted airspace" so that it's logo and the numbers 787 would appear on a flight-tracking website.
FLIGHTAWARE.COM
Boeing pilots made their mark across 10 states in this flight track seen on FlightAware.com.
Boeing pilots took "skywriting" to new heights and lengths in a flight that ended Friday, tracing the company logo and "787" across 10 states.
A 787-8 Dreamliner with GE engines, painted in the colors of Air India, landed at Boeing Field at 8:45 a.m. at the end of a 19-hour endurance test flight. Technically, it was an ETOPS (Extended Operations) flight. But that didn't mean the pilots couldn't have some fun.
Their flight plan from Washington to Iowa and back, revealed by flight tracking company FlightAware, shows the logo and airplane type in giant but extremely neat lines.
In a blog post, Randy Tinseth, Boeing's vice president of marketing, said the flight-test team "coordinated with the many air traffic control centers, choosing the routing to avoid restricted airspace."
The test pilots outdid their colleagues who had tried a similar trick on a 747-8 test flight last August. The giant 747 written in the sky then had the penmanship of a kindergartner.
This time, the 787 pilots get full marks for artistic style.
