Boeing plane draws an outline of itself over the U.S., flying right over Kansas City

This is way, way cooler than Crayons on paper.

Late on Wednesday afternoon, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off from Seattle to spend the next 18 hours in the air for an endurance test flight.

The creative minds at Boeing came up with something to make those hours fly by with some fun for the pilots.

So the pilots flew a path across the skies of the United States that drew an outline of the plane itself, from wing to wing.

“Rather than fly in random patterns, the test team got creative and flew a route that outlined a 787-8,” a Boeing spokesperson told Quartz.

The world watched the image take shape, like a giant Etch A Sketch drawing, on flight-tracking websites.

According to Boeing.com, the plane’s path took it over 22 states. Playback of the flight shows it passing right over Kansas City.

“The nose of the Dreamliner is pointing at the Puget Sound region, home to Boeing Commercial Airplanes,” Boeing spokesman Doug Alder Jr. told the Washington Post.

“The wings stretch from northern Michigan near the Canadian border to southern Texas. The tail touches Huntsville, Alabama.”

Techcrunch reported that Boeing was testing a new set of Rolls Royce engines during the flight, which at nearly 10,000 miles and 18 hours was longer than the current longest commercial route, a 16-hour, 9,000-mile trip from Doha, Qatar, to Auckland, New Zealand.

Boeing has had fun in the skies like this before. In 2012, Quartz reported, another 787 traced the Boeing logo.

Earlier this year, a new Boeing 737 MAX traced the word “MAX” over the skies of Washington state and Montana on a mandatory, nine-hour test flight, noted Quartz.

This story was originally published August 4, 2017 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Boeing plane draws an outline of itself over the U.S., flying right over Kansas City."