Boeing drew a giant 787 Dreamliner in the sky during 18 hour flight

By Brittany Roston/

Boeing took to the sky for a bit of aerial fun recently, using a plane on a long-haul 18 hour flight to draw a giant line art version of the maker's 787-8 aircraft. Of course, you couldn't see the aircraft image in the sky, but instead on a map as the plane's flight path was recorded. The trip spanned nearly from Mexico to Canada and covered a total of 22 U.S. states.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes is headquartered out of the Puget Sound region in Washington, and it is there that the sky art plane's nose is pointing. The left wing stretches down through Texas nearly to Mexico, and the other wing stretches upward to the very top of Michigan just below the Canadian border. The center of the plane lies over the vast fields of central America, while the tail resides over southern and midwestern states.

The line art shows the outline of a Boeing 787-8 airliner; you can watch the image being drawn in real time in the video shared by Boeing (above). As mentioned, the entire process took 18 hours, and served to highlight the long haul capabilities of this particular aircraft. According to Boeing, this Dreamliner is able to facilitate direct flights across long routes, such as from one edge of the US to the other or beyond.

Of course, using transit to draw art over a region isn't new. There's an entire online group dedicated to creating 'GPS art,' which involves tracking GPS across a route created to resemble some shape or object. You can do this yourself if you're feeling particularly creative: just open Google Maps, plot out a route that resembles whatever image you'd like, then go for a jog with your phone's GPS turned on. Assuming you're using a fitness app that tracks your route, you'll see similar line art when you finish the trek.

SOURCE: Boeing

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