The holiday season is fast approaching, and to get us all in the mood, Airbus decided to give one of their test flight crews based in Hamburg, Germany, a pretty bizarre flight plan for their five hour test of an Airbus A380.
Why did the flight plan have them going in circles? Because they were drawing a Christmas tree, as this flight data from air traffic website Flight Radar shows...
🎄✈️ @Airbus is almost finished with their A380 Christmas tree. Will they put a star on top?
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) December 13, 2017
📡 https://t.co/CEadIGqKtt pic.twitter.com/KfVWAjSNd4
And yes, they did add a tree topper. Which just happens to cover the length of neighboring Denmark.
One concern social media users seemed to have was the amount of carbon dioxide emitted drawing the tree.
An A380 burns 13.5t kerosene/hr which generates 3149kg CO2/ton. With a scheduled flight time of 4h52m that would be ~206 tonnes CO2. Yay.
— Jan (@vanderburgt) December 13, 2017
Flight Radar explained that the flight is actually a test for the Airbus A380, so it would be up in the air even if it wasn't drawing a Christmas tree.
Answers to a few common responses to the Airbus Christmas tree (and other special flights like the Boeing 787 drawing a 787):
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) December 13, 2017
1. Yes, it's real.
2. This is a test flight that would be conducted regardless of the particular flight path pic.twitter.com/PsSkaEUfNe
They also shared the flight data from a similar test flight across the United States, where the route drew a plane.
In general, people on social media seemed to think it was pretty cool.
That must be the most expensive Christmas tree in the world to built!
— Claude B. (@Clint009) December 13, 2017
she's a little crooked, but who am I to complain I can't fly a plane
— jeff shelly (@jeffshelly) December 13, 2017
"this is your Captain speaking. Please ensure tray tables are stowed as we will bauble-ing shortly."
— LazyHeartParadeColin (@LazyHeartParade) December 13, 2017
love it ! fantastic move airbus @AJENews @cnnbrk
— Paul E (@paulus50) December 13, 2017
Wow!!
— Lord (@nairobilord) December 13, 2017
Wonderful! Love it!
— buub brussee (@beebrus) December 13, 2017
Great! You guys from flight test are the coolest!
— Sonny (@Sonny_B1) December 13, 2017
Love it 🌲🌲🌲
— Ashfromalien 🌲 (@airscrew46) December 13, 2017
What an awesome idea.
