
Pictures from the Air
I set this site up primarily to give context to the pictures from the Grand Canyon. Since I haven’t managed to put anything else up, I thought I might get into the spirit of updating by posting some of my favorite pictures from the past year or so of flying.

Of course i had to start with the Grand Canyon. I took this trip with Rachel and my mom. The flight was totally worth it to see the real scale of the Canyon.


Since I’ve shown way too much desert so far, I’ll add some water. The above two pictures are from a 2013 trip to Miami.


Not sure where exactly this is, though I’m sure someone can figure it out from the EXIF data. In any case, I just love when the clouds are so distinct and fluffy, creating a deeply detailed carpet. Add to that a sunset. Not great camera pictures but quite the view.

This picture, while not great, gave me an appreciation of how big Los Angeles is. Unless of course this isn’t Los Angeles. Then I don’t know what it says.

I’m pretty sure this canyon of clouds was made by a jetliner that passed before, but I’m not sure. I just love the depth of these clouds. They look so solid from this elevation. I think this was between PHX and SEA or LAX and PDX. Or somewhere else entirely.

Mount Rainier is tall. I had never seen it either from the air or ground and this made quite an impression on me. I wish the picture was a little better but it is amazing how close you feel to it when you’re flying by. I think this was leaving SEA for PDX. It was kind of fun: on PHX-SEA-PDX, IĀ got to pass Mt. Rainier twice!

I was pretty excited when I saw snow capped mountains. Maybe it’s because I’m a southerner but when I caught a glimpse of these in the Pacific Northwest in late April, I had to take a picture. It looks like a pretty rugged place.

Say what you will about Phoenix, but when the wind is right, it has a wonderful approach. I was at a Diamondbacks game and the roof was open with the flightpath going right overhead. Sky Harbor is a pretty busy airport so there was a train of Southwest 737s and smaller jets. Then, coming roaring overhead was a British Airways 747 headed to Heathrow. It’s hard to judge scale from so far away, but with those big engines roaring, there was no mistaking it for anything else. Anyway, nice approach.


While the pictures from the scenic flight over the Grand Canyon were great, there is something about seeing it from 30,000 feet. This is an afternoon flight from Hillsboro to Mesa so the shadows are getting long.

I’m not sure which lake this is, but it’s in the Phoenix area. It could be Apache or Saguaro Lake. This is on a descent, probably into Mesa.

Not from the air, but those Embraer jets look great.

Not a great picture, but I believe this is circling back around over the Pacific after leaving LAX.

Not sure why I’m adding this picture, but I like it.

Here’s another plane landing alongside at LAX.

Saving the best (place) for last, here’s an approach from the West into New Orleans. I’m pretty sure that’s Norco/Cancer Alley on the West Bank of the river. In any case, noxious chemicals aside, I really like this picture with the winding river and the barges all along it.
Anyway, I hope you liked these pictures. With luck, they’ll be many more.
One thought on “Pictures from the Air”
Fantastic! 10/10