Maybe this world maps might give you a starting point? You could make a series of maps and place them on the Zinc canvas, then overlay your vehicle/plane on the GD image.
it looks like a module called GD::Map does a good job at making basemap. Also I believe that I could make the basemaps i need if only I could get Geo::ShapeFile's test program to work. I have been emailing the author with no solution. :(