Flight-tracking apps are usually tools for checking a delayed connection or following an aircraft overhead. For pilot Benjamin McDaniel, they are also a canvas. On November 5, McDaniel flew a GTA VI-inspired route that resolves into a detailed illustration when viewed on Flightradar24’s map.
The flight departed Bentonville, Arkansas, and returned there 8 hours and 8 minutes later. Its track incorporates the GTA VI logo alongside a helicopter, palm trees, a sports car, an alligator and an armed woman. The aircraft was McDaniel’s 1978 Cessna R182 Skylane RG, registration N1810R.
A drawing made from aircraft data, not skywriting
The image was not physically written in the sky. It is the digital trail assembled from aircraft-position data by services such as Flightradar24. The platform primarily uses ADS-B transmissions, including an aircraft’s position, altitude, speed and heading, to reconstruct the route on a map.
McDaniel, who is known online as “The Pilot Picasso,” plans the shapes in ForeFlight using an Apple Pencil. But the execution is not handed off to autopilot: he flies the routes solo and manually. That means a turn begun early, late or too tightly becomes a permanent flaw in the finished track.
You have one continuous line. One try. No do-overs.
Benjamin McDaniel
The GTA VI trip is part of a broader project that began as a way for McDaniel to build flight time and maintain his skills. His earlier flight-path artwork has drawn subjects from art, comics and games, with the designs becoming progressively more elaborate.
- Mona Lisa
- Edvard Munch’s The Scream
- Spider-Man
- The Lord of the Rings-inspired artwork
- Skyrim-inspired artwork
The effort is an unusually literal intersection of navigation software, tablet-style touch planning and map-based entertainment culture: a route designed in a flight-planning app, then rendered by publicly available tracking data. For GTA VI fans, it is a high-effort tribute whose final form exists on a screen rather than in the air.
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