Written in the sky: Area pilot shows love for KC Chiefs, Travis Kelce, Taylor Swift

Kansas City area pilot and assistant professor Mujahid Abdulrahim has a unique way of showing his love for the Kansas City Chiefs as they prepare for Sunday’s Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers.

Abdulrahim took to the sky Wednesday night and flew a path he created using a drawing of Kelce’s jersey number, 87, surrounded by a heart.

“This the language that I speak,” said Abdulrahim, who teaches aircraft design and flight-test engineering at University of Missouri—Kansas City.

Abdulrahim has done a variety of flight plan skywriting projects, usually a combination of aerial art with an advocacy aspect to it. In 2020, it was urging people to get out and vote.

In this case, he was interested in doing something as a tribute that honors the Chiefs and their latest Super Bowl appearance.

“I’ve only been in Kansas City for about five years and so I’ve only been a Chiefs fan for five years,” he said.

Being immersed in aviation, he though it would be a neat tribute to show that there are folks supporting the team in all sorts of ways, as well as to give a nod to Kelce and Swift and the attention their relationship has brought to the city.

Abdulrahim admits that the idea wasn’t his, rather it was from his friend Tyler Wilke, who strongly suggested the flight pattern.

Wilke said something along the lines, “I will not forgive you if you don’t fly an 87 with a heart around it.,” Abdulrahim recalled.

The skywriting can be seen on the FlightAware website for flights taken by his plane.

Shortly before 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Abdulrahim lifted off in his Thorp S-18 single-engine plane from Lee’s Summit Municipal Airport and took a swooping path north over Jackson County across the Missouri River to form the right half of the heart. He continued over Clay County, where he started the seven of Kelce’s jersey.

Once done, he headed west Platte County were he began with the eight of the jersey. When the eight was finished, he took a swooping path near Kansas City International Airport that took him south over Wyandotte and Johnson counties to form the left side of the heart.

He landed shortly before 8:30 p.m. at Lee’s Summit Municipal Airport. The total flight time was about 1 hour and 35 minutes.

During the flight, he faced strong winds of 50 to 60 knots. His airplane is relatively fast, about 150 mph, but because of the wind, he reached over 200 mph at times. Other times, he was only able to go about 100 mph.

This is the second tribute he has done. He did a Chiefs logo on Sunday and while that turned out nicely, FlightAware didn’t capture as good of a track of the flight as it did this time.

The most recent flight was centered around the Wheeler Downtown Airport, and was flown at a high altitude in coordination with air traffic control.

“It turned out much nicer partly because of where I did it and also the fact that the pattern is much larger,” he said.

Abdulrahim might be going up for another flight. Plans are still being worked on for the next skywriting image. The committee he works with is still deciding, he said.

“This is our language,” Abdulrahim said. “This is our art.”