During a test flight, a pilot was caught skywriting the statement “I’m bored” on the airline-tracking website FlightRadar24. The Ravenair plane took off from Liverpool at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 11, flew around the Wirral peninsula, Cheshire and North Wales, and landed back in Merseyside at 1:30 p.m.
Information on the Ravenair skywriting
The pilot of the Ravenair plane, a Ravenair flying instructor, was recorded as having spent 20 minutes tracing the seven-letter phrase in writing similar to cursive over the water between Talacre in Wales and West Kirby in England.
According to FlightRadar24, the message was traced at an altitude of about 335 metres (1,100ft) at speeds of just under 100 knots.
Comments from Ravenair
Operations manager Wayne Barrett said to the BBC:
“I think the pilot was literally a bit bored as it was just a test flight. Mind you it was pretty skillful flying.”
He added that the pilot of the caught skywriting is “not in trouble, but [they] have had a lot of attention from it” and that “the plane is now safely back in the hangar, and the pilot is on his day off.”
Barrett also confirmed that the flight was a mandatory test flight following engine maintenance. He said:
“I think the part was a cylinder that needed replacing. So when this happens, we take the plane up for a test run to make sure everything is OK, which it was.”
Despite what the message suggests, Barrett believes the pilot must have been very focused while writing:
“He was a bit bored, but he probably had to concentrate a lot in the end to spell out the words, so he was probably anything but.”
What do you think about this pilot’s skywriting skills? Let us know in the comments below.
