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A New Twist On Skywriting

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the air-apparent dept.

Nugget writes "The advent of Internet-based flight tracking technology enables an entirely new kind of skywriting. Gulfstream Aerospace sent up one of their $50M business jets today on an 8.5-hour test flight spanning 11 states for the sole purpose of leaving their mark on the Net in the form of a flight track that spells out 'GV' (the nickname of the Gulfstream V aircraft being flown) when viewed online."

6 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. What a disgusting waste of fuel by jimmoores · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At a time when global warming is ruining our climate, this is obscene.

    1. Re:What a disgusting waste of fuel by deadweight · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Can we assume that you never do anything like drive your car to the movies. If you do, you are spewing C02 when you could just wait for a Netflix DVD to come to your door. Everyone who NEVER uses any kind of fossil-fuel provided energy to do ANYTHING not absolutely life-or-death, please go track down the Gulfstream owner and do your CO2 rant. The rest of you shut the fuck up.

  2. Etch-a-sketch by Alain+Williams · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't it remind you of the drawings that you used to do with an etch-a-sketch ?

  3. Re:Hmmmmmm by MPHellwig · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Indeed the only regulations that interfer with your flight are the no-fly zones, the rest is up to you.

  4. They were probably going to fly anyway. by Kadin2048 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe you missed the part of the article where they said this was a test flight. As in, they were testing the plane. The choice of route was a stunt, granted, but if they hadn't flown a great big "GV," they probably would still have done the test flight, and just flown around in a circle, or some other arbitrarily-defined pattern. It's just that flying in this particular pattern got them some extra press, so why not?

    Calm down a little before you flip out, next time.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  5. Re:Hmmmmmm by svanderw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except for all of the regulations on exactly which flight levels you're allowed to fly at, depending on your direction of flight.
    Oh, and the equipment that you've got on your aircraft.
    And the time of day (in some circumstances)
    And the day of the week(in other circumstances)
    And the fact that Air traffic control needs to know where you're planning on flying.
    Europe is even more difficult to fly in based on all of the restrictions that they put against the flight paths attempting to adjust the air traffic flow.

    Oh, or were you basing the comment on the tiny non-jets(piston/turboprop) that can't fly very high.
    (speaking as someone who's attempting to manage this data for commercial flight planning purposes)