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If you’re like most people, the mere idea of having to take an 18-hour flight is enough to make them want to pop a Xanax and follow it up with a drink or five. There aren’t many things more unappealing than the prospect of being trapped in the air for almost a day surrounded by screaming children, the ever-increasing smell of body odor, and whatever potentially infectious disease that guy who won’t stop coughing might have.
However, when you’re the person piloting the plane, you really don’t have the option of being under the influence (not that that’s ever stopped pilots from getting drunk before a flight). As a result, you’re forced to come up with other ways to entertain yourself while autopilot does most of your job for you. In the old days, that meant chain smoking cigarettes and sexually harassing the flight attendants, but pilots nowadays have to be a bit more creative.
The pilots in charge of testing out the Rolls Royce engines on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner decided to get creative after they took off from Seattle before starting the 18-hour adventure— a trial whose total flight time beats out the longest currently available commercial flight by almost two hours. They decided to get a bit meta with their flight path by tracing the shape of an airplane in the air over the course of the flight, and the result was pretty impressive.
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The flight covered a total of 9,896 miles, and the plane flew over 17 states over the course of its travels. It was in Michigan at its northernmost point and eventually ended up near the border of Mexico in southern Texas before circling back to Washington.
This isn’t the first time Boeing pilots have gotten creative with their flight patterns. In February, they wrote “MAX” in the air while testing out a Boeing 737 Max. However, it’s doubtful they’ll ever come close to topping the private pilot who drew a dick in the air back in 2015. Some achievements can simply never be topped.