A PILOT has gone to new lengths to show his support for Ukraine – by painting a message for the war-torn country with his flight path.
Derek Pake, 59, was inspired to take action when he heard the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, address the world, asking for a global show of support for Ukraine, it's people, for peace and for freedom.
He said: "Many of us have already tried to help Ukraine through charity donations or gifts so I thought I’d try and raise awareness further through my skywriting."
The air traffic controller, who usually operates out of Prestwick Airport, took to the skies on Friday to create his message.
It reads "Slava Ukraiani", which transaltes as "Glory to Ukraine".
He flew his home-built Van’s RV-8 plane - which can reach speeds of up to 230mph - from Bute with a friend in the backseat who held a Ukrainian flag.
At around 3.30pm, the aircraft began tracing the letter “s” in the sky above the Kintyre peninsula south of Tarbert.
It took around 45 minutes for him to complete the message that he had planned out in his flight mapping software and it is viewable on radar tracking sites across the world.
This is the second instance of such creativity in recent months.
In June 2021, the same aircraft type was used to fly from Prestwick across the Firth of Clyde, above Tarbert, Kames and Rothesay to draw the image of a Scottish flag in the air.
It’s not clear if that stunt was also the work of Mr Pake.
During that occasion, the sounds from the aircraft overhead led local residents to the internet to figure out what was going on.
One FlightRadar user noticed the flag being drawn and went to the discussion site Reddit to share their findings.
“That explains what I heard overhead,” noted one user, as others said they’d been “very confused” by what the aircraft was doing.
“That is the coolest thing I've seen in a long time,” said another Reddit user.
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