How do you keep the pilots entertained during an almost 18 hour live engine test on an aircraft? You let them have some fun with it. Boeing has conducted one such live engine test on its 787 Dreamliner. During the 18 hour test flight, the plane traced the outline of a massive plane above the United States. It looks pretty cool when you pull up the tracking data for this flight.

18 hours is a lot of time to spend on an airplane and it’s enough time to cover an immense amount of distance. The outline that the pilots have created during this test flight is of a massive plane.

They’ve likely hit 17 states in this endeavor, ranging from Texas to Michigan. The plane eventually landed back at Boeing’s home base in Seattle once the live test was finished. The 787 Dreamliner in this test was up in the air for 17 hours and 45 minutes. It covered a total of 9,896 miles.

That’s much longer and farther than the longest commercial route in service today. Just in case you’re curious, the longest commercial route today is the flight that links Doha, Qatar to Auckland, New Zealand. That particular flight is 16 hours and 10 minutes long. It covers 9,021 miles. Imagine being on a plane for so long!

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