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The true story behind the aircraft that drew a giant penis in the sky

'Draw a giant penis, that would be awesome'

Helen Coffey
Wednesday 15 May 2019 07:16 EDT
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The giant image of a penis drawn by a US Navy air crew with the exhaust of an advanced fighter jet is seen in the skies over Okanogan County in Washington state
The giant image of a penis drawn by a US Navy air crew with the exhaust of an advanced fighter jet is seen in the skies over Okanogan County in Washington state (INSTAGRAM @RREED.69/via REUTERS)

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Two years after a naval jet drew a giant penis in the sky, the full story behind the stunt has finally emerged.

The incident hit headlines in November 2017 after a Navy E/A-18 Growler warplane flew in an unusual air pattern over Okanogan County in Washington, using the contrails to create some crude sky “graffiti”.

At the time, the crew was grounded when pictures of the penis went viral.

“Sophomoric and immature antics of a sexual nature have no place in Naval aviation today,” Vice Admiral Mike Shoemaker, the commander of Naval Air Forces, said in a statement.

Dialogue between the two junior officers responsible has now been revealed for the first time.

The Navy Times printed the details, having obtained a recording by submitting a Freedom of Information request.

The officers had completed a training session and had time to kill when they hit upon the idea of using their jet’s contrails to doodle the artwork.

“Draw a giant penis, that would be awesome,” one of the officers can be heard saying.

“You should totally try to draw a penis.”

The pilot replied: “I could definitely draw one, that would be easy.

”I could basically draw a figure eight and turn around and come back. I’m going to go down, grab some speed and hopefully get out of the contrail layer so they’re not connected to each other.“

They continued: ”Dude, that would be so funny. Airliner’s coming back on their way into Seattle, just this big f***ing, giant penis. We could almost draw a vein in the middle of it too.“

While the officers noted that their member was “a little lopsided”, they were pleased overall with the result, reportedly laughing as they flew away and taking pictures of the finished picture.

”Oh yes, that was f***ing amazing,“ the pilot concluded.

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However, the pair didn’t expect the penis to stick around for so long. In the investigation report, the pilot claimed he had tried to “scribble it out” by flying across the image to create more contrails.

“My initial reaction was no, bad,” the pilot wrote of the incident in a statement afterwards. “But for some reason still unknown to me, I eventually decided to do it.”

In the report provided to The Navy Times, the names of the officers involved were redacted, but an investigator noted that, while the stunt was ”crude, immature and unprofessional“, it was believed to be an isolated incident.

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