Airbus A380 draws giant Christmas tree over Germany

The image was created by the test crew of an Airbus A380

An Airbus pilot in Germany has delivered an early festive present by tracing the outline of an enormous Christmas tree during a test flight.

The crew, which was testing an Airbus A380, produced a colourful image clearly rendered on the flight tracking website Flightradar24.

The tree, complete with baubles, stretched for hundreds of kilometres from Hamburg to Stuttgart in the south.

The jet will eventually be flown by Dubai carrier Emirates.

The tree was rendered in several colours, reflecting the plane's varying altitudes. No passengers were on board.

Flightradar24 is a live flight-tracking website that shows air traffic in real time.

Last month, a US Navy pilot was strongly reprimanded for using contrails to trace a penis over the state of Washington.