Airbus Test Pilots Took a Festive Flight Path Over Germany

Airbus test pilots were feeling the Christmas spirit when they left Hamburg on a test flight in an A380 this week. FlightRadar24

When it comes to creating works of art with flight paths, not every pilot is Vincent van Gogh. Some aviators’ radar drawings wouldn’t even make it on their parents’ refrigerators. Still, it’s the effort that we appreciate, and we’ll always be suckers for something creative and unique popping up on FlightRadar24’s live tracker.

On Wednesday, an Airbus flight test team out of Hamburg used their A380 to draw a Christmas tree over Germany, and they were even kind enough to place some ornaments on it. It's not exactly the most beautiful tree — most people would probably toss it back in the pile with the rest of the underwhelming Douglas firs — but it spread some holiday cheer to many of Airbus's Twitter followers.

Is it as flawless and detail-oriented as the 787 Dreamliner drawn by Boeing test pilots back in August? We'll leave that up to the qualified aviation art critics to decide. At least it's subtler than what the Navy's pilots are drawing these days.

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