A test flight conducted on Saturday, February 11, was observed by the flight tracking website FlightRadar24 to have spelled out the word ‘MAX’ above the skies of northwestern states of the USA.
The nine-hour flight was part of routing endurance testing for the new 737 MAX and spelling the word out probably seemed more interesting than flying laps or circles. So, creativeness prevailed.
“For eight of its nine hours aloft, the 737 MAX worked on its aerial penmanship writing a 997km-long (619 mile), 277km-high (172 mile) ‘MAX’ over the states of Washington, [Idaho] and Montana,” reports FlightRadar24, which was one of the first to report on the unique flight plan.
“The ‘MAX’ portion of the flight covered approximately 5,534km (3,439 miles),” the website added on its blog, which included a flight-tracking map simulating the plane’s route.
The aircraft has been busy in cold and heat testing, too. “737 MAX N8704Q has been busy over the past month with flight tests,” FlightRadar24 reports. “In mid-January, the airplane visited Yakutsk, Russia, for cold-weather testing. When the MAX began its first test flight in Yakutsk, the temperature at the airport was -37°C. Ten days later the aircraft flew to Darwin, Australia, where the temperature was +32°C.”
Written by Michael Jones
February 15, 2017
