It is every pilot’s duty, at some point in their career, to safely and securely—without putting anyone at risk—use flight tracking systems to draw some penises in the sky. Not with skywriting smoke. That would be gauche. But with GPS tracking. It feels like a rite of passage. Unfortunately, it’s a lot less acceptable when you’re a professional pilot or a military pilot, which is exactly the problem facing a group of cadets from the Finnish Air Force.
During a training exercise on April 13, cadets flying out of Tikkakoski used their flight paths to create shapes that, according to publicly available tracking data from Flightradar24, resembled d—k and balls. At least four aircraft were involved, each contributing a piece to the beautiful tapestry.
The flights themselves weren’t technically unsafe, but Air Force officials would rather their very expensive equipment weren’t used to draw genitalia via GPS.
Finnish Air Force Cadets Reportedly Drew Dicks During Training Flight
The Air Force confirmed that the cadets were disciplined, emphasizing that military personnel are expected to follow standards of conduct that extend beyond just not crashing planes. Drawing a mighty penis among the clouds, anchored by a proud set of sky testicles, does not fall under that standard, apparently.
One thing to keep in mind here is that the story was initially reported by Iltalehti, a Finnish tabloid outlet. From what I’ve gathered, it doesn’t exclusively dish out bulls—t stories, but it does operate closer to the sensational end of journalism. So while the core facts have been acknowledged by the Air Force, it’s worth keeping that context in mind.
Regardless, the lesson to take from this is that we should all try to leave a mark on life in the little time we have on this planet. Will yours be a gargantuan penis in the sky, or will it be something stupid?
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