Inspired by our March 2016 cover story by James Fallows, “How America Is Putting Itself Back Together,” readers share their best aerial photos from across the U.S. Submit your own via hello@theatlantic.com. (Please provide the location, the story behind the photo, and the largest file size you have. Horizontal photos with a bit of the plane visible—a wing, the edge of a window—are ideal. Terms and Conditions here.)
This picture is looking down at the former Savanna Army Depot just South of Hanover, Illinois, this weekend. The Mississippi River is in the background. Large sections are now being used for temporary storage of rail cars, but you can see the remains of roads that were once lined by ammunition bunkers.
The U.S. Army began work there in 1917 with military weapons testing and the grounds boomed to life. During World War II it was the largest Army depot in the county. Over the years it was also used to store, manufacture and recycle munitions.
Later, it was listed for BRAC closure and the depot officially shut its doors in 2000. Today, much of the property is out-of-bounds due to environmental contaminants. The areas that are off-limits to the public today are surrounded by tall fences and posted with signs that say restricted. However, you can still get pretty close enough to see many of the old buildings.
Especially if you’re in a small plane. But the area isn’t entirely abandoned:
“It might look like a ghost town, but that’s because you can’t see the activity,” said Alan Anderson, a Wildlife Refuge Operation Specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There is some work happening with the railroad and efforts to redevelop the area, but Anderson works there for a different reason. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been developing a National Wildlife Refuge here for actually 20 years,” he said.
The Army has transferred over about 10,000 acres that’s now called the Lost Mound Unit. Only part of it is open to visitors. “The work the military did disturbed some of the habitat that’s out here but it also preserved some of the habitat that’s out here,” added Anderson.
Yesterday Stu Smith, who flies as a seasonal pilot for Kenmore Air in the Seattle area, shared a wonderful photo of a circular rainbow.
I’m very familiar with and fond of Kenmore Air, and not simply because my wife Deb and I took some of their seaplane flights for travel around the Puget Sound area when we lived in Seattle in 1999 and 2000. It’s also because I took seaplane-flying lessons there from Smith’s Kenmore colleague, Chris Jacob.
Because they fly so low-and-slow, and because they often land on lakes, bays, and shorelines right near cities, seaplanes generally offer a particularly striking version of the aerial view. In his note, Stu explains what we are seeing above:
I’ve flown for Kenmore for a dozen seasons in DeHavil and Beavers and Turbine Otters, all on floats. All of our flying is single-pilot, and
the company is certified to carry passengers in the copilot’s seat. I
often receive photos taken by passengers who are kind enough to share, since I tend to be occupied at the controls. Most of our flying is
low-level, typically below 5,000 feet above the ground. This is an
ideal height to see detail on the ground as well as a distant, synoptic view.
The photo above was taken by a passenger (name lost to history) sitting in the copilot’s seat. We’re flying in a Beaver on a scenic flight, southbound over Seattle’s Lake Union. Lake Union is freshwater, and is our primary takeoff and landing site. The seaplane dock, where Kenmore’s passengers embark and disembark, is just to the right of photo center (at the moment unoccupied).
Downtown is out of sight to the photo’s left, about a mile or so off our nose. Beyond the Space Needle to the southwest is Elliot Bay and then Admiralty Inlet, which are saltwater and part of Puget Sound. The plane’s right front float is just visible in the lower-left portion of the image.
Stu Smith, a reader who works as a seasonal commercial seaplane pilot for Seattle’s Kenmore Air, passes along a real beauty:
This photo was taken from the copilot’s seat by my friend Marshall Collins, who is a flight instructor at Clover Park Technical College (where I received my training and was also a flight instructor). This was a scheduled flight in a Beaver from Seattle to Victoria, British Columbia. We were about a third of the way into the 70 mile-long, northwest-bound flight when the circular rainbow appeared below us. If Marshall had had a wider-angle lens, he would have caught the entire circle.
At the time of the photo we were over the small village of Port Gamble, Washington, which had a long history as a timber and sawmill town. We’re looking to the northeast, with Point Julia in the foreground, the Kitsap Peninsula in the middle distance and Admiralty Inlet in the far distance. Marshall was riding along as my guest, since there was an unsold seat on this flight and he was available to join me.
Love this series so far and thought I’d throw in one of mine. This shot was taken along the central California coast in the Big Sur area after taking off from Monterey en route to Montgomery Field in San Diego in a Diamond DA-40. In contrast to all of the great shots so far on (mostly) clear days, this photo was captured under instrument flight rules. [CB note: That’s defined as “rules and regulations established by the FAA to govern flight under conditions in which flight by outside visual reference is not safe”—in contrast to visual flight rules.]
The right side of the picture shows an interesting pattern that tends to show up in cell phone pictures taken from propeller aircraft. The best explanation I have found is here.
I really enjoyed “How America Is Putting Itself Back Together,” as well as your reader series on aerial photography, “America by Air,” which is one of my new favorite things. As a private pilot, I’ve been dying to submit, so today I thought I’d drop a line and share what I have.
Here’s a photo of Lake Bryan I took flying over beautiful Bryan, Texas. I love shooting photographs over the cowling of my Cessna 152 because of the effect that the moving propeller creates in the lens, like drifting horizontal tildes [ ~ ] cutting into the frame. Of course, you can’t see this effect with the naked eye, but it always shows up on a digital photo. As a Mexican-American pilot, I like to think of the tildes as benevolent latinate characters greeting me in the sky. Think Super Mario and those friendly clouds.
Heading south from Seattle, with Mt. Rainier, Mt. St. Helens, and other volcanic peaks to the east. (Tom Fallows)
It’s overcast today in Seattle, where my wife Deb and I have come for the annual Citizens University conference — an inspiring gathering of civic-engagement activists from around the country. But two days ago skies were clear along the West Coast. That is when reader (and son) Tom Fallows of San Francisco took pictures as he left Seattle, above, and came into San Francisco, below.
Coming home to the Bay Area. (Tom Fallows)
No comment needed, beyond remarking that this is a beautiful part of a beautiful country (and world).
After the jump, a reaction from another reader, involving the theme of fathers and sons and the view from above.
A reader in Southern California reacts to a post from a former flight instructor who said how much he loved the low-altitude view. Emphasis added — I have flown through this same area and can picture the scene he describes:
Similar memories of flying in the Riverside, CA and surrounding areas a long time ago.
Loved flying at lower altitudes; had the feeling of flying through a valley, rather than over it. Especially in the morning air, when it was smooth - magical, indescribable feeling. Following the Santa Ana River to the beach, south along the coast, and back over the hills to RAL [Riverside Municipal] was also a favorite. [JF note: I have flown this same route, from the airports in Redlands and San Bernardino toward those on the coast. It is magical, though usually with enough other airborne traffic that you can spend too much time just taking in the view.]
Would absolutely love to get back into it again, but my wife is fearful. I'm scheming tho'. We have a boy on the way… That boy is going to experience small aircraft flight early in his life (I'll take him while mommy is at work). He'll be addicted and it will be two against one!
In response to a new pilot’s note about what he enjoyed in the aerial view, a reader who has worked as a flight instructor describes what he misses about that time in his life:
Thanks for your occasional odes to flying. I haven’t flown for years—for lack of $$, not for lack of desire. Some of the things I never tired of:
Flying west: over Ohio, an altitude of 3,500 was just beyond the ability to detect human forms on the ground below. And it fascinated me that if I held that altitude, I would crash somewhere just west of Colby, KS. [JF note: In case it’s not obvious, this is because the ground level goes steadily up as you head west. Between the Appalachians and the Atlantic, the ground level is generally less than 1000 feet above sea level. It’s the same through Ohio and Indiana and across the Mississippi River. But then it starts going up, and has reached 3,500 feet in Kansas. An airplane’s flight altitude is measured in elevation above sea level, not above the ground.]
Back in the day, when I was a flight instructor, I would ferry new aircraft from the factory in Wichita or OK City (remember the pre-Reagan days when general aviation was a thriving industry? I’ll never forgive him for what he did to that industry). And flying west, way off in the distance over the flat-as-a-cracker landscape that is KS and OK, the tips of the Rockies would slowly appear. I would always try to be alert for the very first clue that they were there, kind of like watching for the green flash at sunset over the ocean.
There’s also that sense of ownership and familiarity that you get flying over terrain. I never flew that much in the South or Southeast. But flying to or from the West Coast in the northern half of the country, I can generally look out of an airliner window and fairly reliably know the state we are flying over.
Then there’s the magic of IFR.Taking off, and shortly thereafter being absorbed by the clouds into a cocoon of whiteness, then breaking out on top into brilliant blue sky and sunshine. Something people in airliners rarely get to experience is flying being between layers. It’s a whole fantasy world of clear horizontal visibility with clouds above and clouds below; especially if there are cumulus upshoots, like building columns supporting the heavens. And then, being swallowed up in white until, magically, the runway appears. Is there anything more beautiful than the Christmas tree of a fully lit runway? Something you never see from the back of an airliner.
A reader who goes by Glenn got perilously close to an erupting volcano:
During one of my trips to Hawaii, I decided to get creative and take a ride in a replica of a 1939 biplane. Over Kilauea. There is nothing like the thermals in a biplane over an active volcano.
Needless to say, taking pictures was problematic. Almost all the shots came out completely out of focus. [The one above] is an example of “That would have been a great shot if I only could hold the camera still for one more second.”
Here’s what Kilauea looked like this week, in timelapse, via Hawaii 24/7:
A reader sends this shot of Los Angeles and an affectionate nod to the city’s pollution problem:
I snapped this picture upon my return from a year-long master’s program in Oxford, England. After enduring all that noxious clean air and lush English countryside, I have to say I’ve never been more excited to see such a sprawling and smoggy grid before: home sweet smelly home.
I’m stepping in for Chris Bodenner, usual host in this space, because I was so delighted to hear the back story behind today’s reader photo. Riley Roberts sent it early this month:
As a newly-certified pilot (I passed my FAA checkride just yesterday), I've spent a lot of time puttering around the DC area’s tightly-controlled airspace over the last few months, both solo and with my instructor. [JF note: Congratulations!]
One of my favorite things about flying, particularly on crisp winter days, is the view: when the air is clear, you can see for miles. Once you’re at altitude and on course, with the plane trimmed for cruise, the cockpit isn’t overwhelmingly busy. There’s no sound other than the drone of the engine and occasional radio chatter in your headset. It becomes almost dreamlike—with the landscape slowly rolling by, the horizon rocking up across your field of vision with each bank of the wings, and nothing but open sky for a mile in every direction.
I snapped this photo of Maryland’s western shore from the pilot’s seat about a month ago, just a few days after the massive snowstorm that shut down the area. It took almost a week to clear the runway at my local airport, so the snow had begun to recede by the time I got back into the air. But the world still looked dramatically different—and absolutely gorgeous.
What I’ve learned over the decades is that many people shudder at the very idea of small-plane flight. But those of us who love it, love it for exactly the reason the reader explains so well. It is a dreamlike state, in which you do what people through the first 99.9% of human existence only imagined: moving through the air as if swimming, seeing the Earth from above. If you enjoy this, you never tire of it.
Here is a sample of what I thought of when I read this submission: the scene from out the side window of our plane about a year ago, when my wife Deb and I were traveling across the Mojave from Arizona to Southern California. By the laws of physics and the workings of the Earth’s curvature, from 8500 feet up, as I think we were then, we would be able to see features 80 to 100 miles away. The map showed that the mountains to the north were at least that distant; from inside the plane, the view seemed limitless.
Over the Mojave (Deb Fallows)
At the opposite scale of intimacy, the photo below shows the other aspect of the aerial view. This was taken out the front window of the plane, when we were less than 1,000 feet above the ground and coming in for a landing in the tiny town of Chester, Montana. What I remember about this “sight picture,” as it’s called, is the way the runway appeared to be almost an extension of Chester’s main street. The runway is what looks like a short street, just beyond the town and paralleling the highway.
On final approach for landing in Chester, Montana (Deb Fallows)
Deb will be writing more about Chester and why we went there, which involved its surprising role in the arts.
Congratulations again to Riley Roberts. Next, on to instrument training! If you haven’t read it already, be sure to buy, read, and re-read the timeless classic of airmanship, Wolfgang Langewiesche’s Stick and Rudder. It was published in 1944 (by the late father of my friend and former Atlantic colleague William Langewiesche) and seems as if it could have been written yesterday. It’s a good idea to read The Killing Zonetoo—the survival guide to the first ~250 hours as a pilot. Fly safely, so you can have the longest possible span through which to observe these sights.
Just when I think the series is coming to a close, we get an especially great email from a reader:
My work has taken me to Barrow, Alaska, on several occasions over the years. This photo was shot immediately after taking off from Wiley Post-Will Rogers Memorial Airport in Barrow. The west end of the runway ends close to the Chukchi Sea, and the view in this photo is looking southwest along that coast. Barrow is behind the aircraft, not visible in this view. The landing gear is not yet fully retracted and we are already turning toward Fairbanks, our next stop.
The most significant attribute of this photo is that it was taken on October 2, 2014, and there is no sea ice in sight.
Sea ice up to the shore protects the shore from erosion during storms. Of all the months of the year, October has warmed most above the historic normal in Barrow (pdf). The October departure from the normal between 1979 and 2012 was 7.2 degrees Celsius. Consequently, the sea freezes much later than it used to and this exposes Barrow to strong waves from autumn storms that severely erode the coastline.
The town itself, along with many other smaller settlements in northern and western Alaska, are facing existential threats from these storms. Extensive dredge and fill operations are required to replace beach sand washed away by storms. Barrow is seeking funds for a seawall, estimated to cost between $200 million and $1 billion.
Update from another reader, who’s a total buzzkill for the series:
It is fitting that this existential threat is highlighted in a thread about people flying in airplanes, given that:
Flying, particularly on long-haul flights, is so highly emitting that it dwarfs everything else on an individual carbon budget. Many climate groups have calculated that in a sustainable world each person would have a carbon allowance of two to four tons of carbon emissions annually. Any single long-haul flight nearly “instantly uses that up,” said Christian Jardine, a senior researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University.
For many people reading this, air travel is their most serious environmental sin. One round-trip flight from New York to Europe or to San Francisco creates about 2 or 3 tons of carbon dioxide per person.
Let’s see some photos taken from bicycles! Depending, of course, upon how the bicyclist is fueled: “. . . the Prius-driving vegan beats the meat-eating bicyclist by about half a ton in annual carbon impact.”
I spoke too soon when I noted last night that we’ve only received aerial photos from airplanes so far:
I hope it’s not too late to submit a photo! This one was taken from the Shamu blimp over Virginia around 1990. The blimp came from SeaWorld to Manassas Airport to provide camera services for a University of Virginia football game. I was lucky enough to snag a seat on a practice flight the day before the game. We took off from Manassas and cruised over the Virginia countryside to Charlottesville. We orbited the stadium for a bit, then flew over Monticello, and basically had a beautiful sightseeing tour over the Valley of Virginia in the fine fall weather.
At one point, we were joined by the friendly little biplane in my picture. (In the background is the Blue Ridge, or maybe it’s the Alleghenies...) We were in the air for about six hours, and after seeing a beautiful sunset, we landed by the light of the full Harvest Moon. A magical flight …
Anyway, I doubt you’ll see many more contemporary shots of a biplane in flight, taken from an airship.