Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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."

3 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. 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."