Boeing paints logo on the US skies

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A zig-zagging Boeing 787 etched the company's logo across western US skies in a 19-hour test flight last week - though the ethereal product can only be seen in the flight plan.

Boeing sent the 787-8 Dreamliner powered by GE engines out for the long flight last Thursday for a duration test.

From Seattle, the company's production base, it flew straight into a '7' to begin painting out a massive '787' that stretched over the Rocky Mountains.

Then the aircraft powered twice through a sprawling circular pattern, and cut that with a swoosh and a wing, to map out the company's logo across the airspace of five states.

In all the pattern stretched some 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) above the western states from Seattle, Washington, to the eastern edge of Iowa.

The picture is clear in the flight plan mapped by FlightAware, a website that tracks private and commercial flights around the world.

"This wasn't a joy ride," Boeing marketing vice president Randy Tinseth said in his blog after the flight.

"Our team coordinated with the many air traffic control centers, choosing the routing to avoid restricted airspace. In the end, the flight covered over 9,000 nautical miles," he said.

It was not the first time Boeing has attempted such a feat. Last August a 747 painted those numbers, but not the company logo, in a flight over the country.