Happy Valentine’s Day! My Valentine’s Day was about as romantic as you’d expect it to be when flying Delta and China Eastern to Asia. Fortunately Virgin Atlantic took Valentine’s Day to new heights (literally), with a heart shaped flight.
Specifically, Virgin Atlantic operated a flight in the shape of a heart, which many followed along with on Flighradar24, by searching flight number VS850P.
Here’s how Virgin Atlantic describes the flight:
Proving that love really is in the air, Virgin Atlantic flight VS850P departed London Gatwick on 14th February and mapped out a heart shape as it travelled over the South West coast of England. Virgin Atlantic had to submit a special request to NATS (National Air Traffic Services) to fly this unique shape over British air space as part of a training flight.
The flight was operated by an Airbus A330 called ‘HonkyTonk Woman’, and departed London Gatwick at 11am today. Aviation lovers were able to follow its progress by searching the Flightradar24 app for flight VS850P
Captain JJ Burrows, Director Aircraft Operations for Virgin Atlantic said: “We had a training flight planned for February 14th, and when we realised it was Valentine’s Day we decided to have a little fun.”
“Our special heart shaped flight took off from London Gatwick, traveling across the south of England and over the Cornish coast to form a heart shape at around 30,000ft. We hope people will track the flight’s progress via apps such as Flightradar – looking for flight VS850P.”
Here’s a GIF of the flight map:
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a large aircraft draw shapes in the sky. For example, last year an Airbus A380 “drew” a Christmas tree in the sky over Europe, while a Boeing 787 “drew” a 787 in the sky over the US.
Often people react to seeing this by saying “how wasteful.” It’s important to remember that these kinds of things are only being done as part of necessary test flights. Since these planes have to fly a certain distance anyway, they figure they might as well have some fun with it. In this case Virgin Atlantic was performing some test flights for an A330 that they were taking delivery of (the plane used to fly for airberlin).
Well done, Virgin Atlantic!
@idp5601 - I did read the article (unfortunately) - you should too. The planners were pilots too - and I was referring to them. Don't just be a fanboy, ready to defend anything written on this blog - this site already has too many of them.
@DT If you actually read the article (and I highly doubt you have), you'll see that the pilots had no say in this. The airline itself planned it.
Such nonsense. Who pays for the fuel cost? The pilots should be fired - flying a commercial jetliner is not the same as a blimp with a juvenile “ will you marry me” streamer.
Do you think stormy Daniels is hot?
Hey I got a topic for you.
British High Commissioner says "British Airways will resume flights to Pakistan". I'm not sure if you know about the new Islamabad Airport opening this spring but I think British Airways might add the new Islamabad Airport as a new network destination soon.
This was with an ex-AB A332?