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.)
Our guidelines for the series recommend photos taken low enough to see detail on the ground, but this 30,000-foot view is simply too striking not to post:
This photo from reader Brian Neil doesn’t have a part of the aircraft in the frame but it makes the view all the more surreal. Here’s Brian with details and a bonus pic:
My friend Tom took this photo during a flight over San Francisco while I piloted a Cessna 172. The fog in SF has always been one of its most interesting features, and I love days when it partially covers the city. Sutro Tower gets to lord over the fog all the time, but it’s not common for it to reach downtown like this:
Jessica Placzek at KQED, a public radio station in San Francisco, profiled the Sutro Tower last summer:
Back in the 1960s, San Francisco had really bad television reception. By many accounts, it was the worst of any city in America. Good reception required a clear line of sight from the broadcast tower to your TV antenna, and in hilly San Francisco this was a challenge. Broadcasters began the hunt for a location to build a very tall tower that could send a clear TV signal far and wide. [...]
Eric Dausman, general manager of Sutro Tower, says the architect’s decision to taper the center was entirely aesthetic. “All the engineers since then want to shoot him. It made it a more difficult structure to maintain, and it is a more difficult structure to keep perfectly upright and in a great condition,” says Dausman.
The other major change was the color. Original plans showed a tower with a golden hue, but aviation regulations required the tower be painted alternating stripes of red and white to ward off possible plane collisions.
San Francisco writer Herb Caen once wrote, “I keep waiting for it to stalk down the hill and attack the Golden Gate Bridge.” Acknowledging both displeasure and affection for its undeniable prominence on the city's skyline, it is sometimes referred to light-heartedly as the Sutro Monster or Space Claw.
For some aerial views from the tower, check out this great video from KQED narrated by Placzek:
Update from a reader who lived in San Francisco for a while:
This isn’t a submission because it’s a photo from the ground not the air, but since I’m a Sutro appreciator, I am sharing a photo of the Sutro Monster I took that I really like:
Sutro seems to be using the fog to sneak up on an unsuspecting city. Attached. Sutro Tower even has a fan site, run by a Floridian. I sent in that photo years ago and it is now one of the many used on the page.
Early evening over Antrim County, Michigan, back in April 2008, following departure from the Antrim Co. Airport (KACB) on Runway 2. Intermediate Lake is in the foreground and Lake Bellaire is in the upper right of the photo. The small town of Bellaire (pop. approx. 1080) is visible between the airport and Lake Bellaire.
After spending 40 years as a pilot based in Michigan, I have quite a few more photos. I’ll be happy to send more if you’re interested.
Yes please. And if you have one yourself, even if you’ve had a photo posted already, please send to hello@theatlantic.com.
This was taken in a Cessna 172 in early August 2015. The location is near Kalamazoo, Michigan, looking west at around 5500 MSL. I loved how the low sun was reflecting off of Lake Michigan and also filtering through the clouds.
Here’s another view from a Cirrus SR22, taken early this morning. This is Truckee, California, in the Sierra Nevada, just north of Lake Tahoe. The wonderful Truckee Airport, situated in the Martis Valley, is below me. Just left of the wing tip are the ski hills at Northstar, still with some snow on the runs. In the middle distance you can just see Lake Tahoe, and in the far distance above and left of Northstar are the ski runs at Heavenly, in South Lake Tahoe.
It’s a tough balance to concentrate on a safe takeoff from Truckee airport while soaking in the breathtaking views on climb-out.
The only time I visited Tahoe was also the only time I ever had a flat tire—and by flat, I mean exploded:
I saw the pieces fly high in the rearview mirror. Changing my friend’s tire on a narrow, pitched road covered in ice and snow with a tiny jack wasn’t the best way to spend the morning. But the rest of the visit was serene, as was the winter landscape:
This picture was taken from my Cirrus SR22 (same airplane as Jim Fallows’) flying over Salt Lake City at about a mile high. We were flying back from Ogden, UT to my home in Tucson AZ, via a fuel stop in Bryce Canyon. I have many more photos, if you are interested.
We’re definitely interested in more photos, even if you’ve already had one posted: hello@theatlantic.com (submission guidelines here). The series has been such a great way to learn about places all over the U.S. Here’s a bit about the mountains above, the Wasatch Range:
The mountains were a vital source of water, timber, and granite for early settlers. Today, 85% of Utah’s population lives within 15 miles (24 km) of the Wasatch Range, mainly in the valleys just to the west. This concentration is known as the Wasatch Front and has a population of just over 2,000,000 residents.
Alex Gilman-Smith, who previously submitted these great canyon shots from the Southwest, also has a gorgeous one from Hawaii:
I’m really enjoying your America by Air series and I thought you might enjoy these pictures I grabbed during a Delta 837 flight from Atlanta to Honolulu. After a lot of blue, we reached Hawaii, where I took this picture of Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head.
It’s the name of a volcanic tuff cone on the Hawaiian island of Oʻahu and known to Hawaiians as Lēʻahi, most likely from lae 'browridge, promontory’ plus ʻahi 'tuna' because the shape of the ridgeline resembles the shape of a tuna’s dorsal fin. Its English name was given by British sailors in the 19th century, who mistook calcite crystals on the adjacent beach for diamonds.
Diamond Head is part of the system of cones, vents, and their associated eruption flows that are collectively known to geologists as the Honolulu Volcanic Series, eruptions from the Koʻolau Volcano that took place long after the volcano formed and had gone dormant.
Flying with my daughter over the Hudson River at 800 ft. in a Grumman AA5B Tiger. She took the photo of downtown NYC.
A gorgeous view of soft pastels. But I hope there comes a day when I can completely appreciate this skyline of a city where I lived and loved for nearly a decade without thinking of that dark chapter.
Ideally we want to see part of the aircraft in these aerial photos, but this one from reader Rama is way too good to pass up:
Here’s a favorite of mine taken four years ago in the Outer Banks. This is Cape Lookout Lighthouse. The Light at Cape Hatteras gets all the attention, being the tallest in the U.S., but Cape Lookout Lighthouse is my favorite. The beauty of the Outer Banks and its lighthouses can be appreciated best from above. This was on a custom lighthouse tour that took us around six iconic lights of the OBX.
My family and I used to vacation once a year in nearby Duck when I was in middle school, so the Outer Banks looms large in my memory. If you, like Rama, have a great aerial photo from the OBX to share, or in general have a memorable view above your childhood vacation spot, please send: hello@theatlantic.com (submission guidelines here).
This time, instead of a biplane over Kilaeua, it’s a helicopter over Kauai, specifically the Na Pali Coast, a chain of mountains in the northwest of Kauai. This picture shows a good example of the popup waterfalls you get after rain showers in the islands.
One of our submission guidelines reads, “Low-flying planes or other craft, from which you can see details on the ground, are ideal”—which this reader really took to heart:
I love your America by Air series. Here’s a low pass over a breaking wave from a helicopter in Malibu, California.
Pass along your own aerial pic via hello@theatlantic.com, especially if you can add some turf to this reader’s surf. How about a crop-duster?