Tag Archives: airplanes

Quick Flight Home

I just returned from a trip west from our home in Michigan. As usual I had my camera with me to record some of the events during the flight back from Denver.

This is our aircraft at the gate in Denver. It is a Boeing B737 Max.

I’m always hoping for clear, cloudless skies. During the flight I’m continuously looking out of the window at the scenery below. One of my “hobbies” is to photograph airports from above. It’s relatively easy to spot an airport because of the long, straight runways which stand out from the surrounding scenery.

This is the Ankeny Regional Airport. It is located a few miles north of Des Moines, Iowa.

Our flight took a route that was close to a straight line from Denver to Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is relatively easy to determine the location of the plane from the map that is displayed on the seat back screen.

Our aircraft was equipped with seat back displays. One of the view options is to show the flight progress. This helps to identify the scenery as I take photos from the plane’s window.

By referring to the seat back display I was able to look for landmarks that help me determine the area below.

This is the Monticello Regional Airport located northeast of Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Here is the Kenosha Airport. It is located in Wisconsin just north of the Illinois state line.

Less than a minute after passing the Kenosha Airport, we started the flight across Lake Michigan.

What you see here is the southeast coast of Wisconsin.

Our plane landed about fifteen minutes later after crossing Lake Michigan. Clouds over our home in Grand Rapids prevented me from taking any further photos of the scenery below.

As an “aviation nerd” I simply enjoy taking picture during these flights.

For those of you who might wonder how I can know the name of the airports in the photos that I take from 35,000 feet or so, please refer to an article at my other website https://stayfocusedpress.com/?p=13070

Written by:

Arnie Lee

Civilian Aircraft

Props, Turbos, Jets and Floats

For many years part of our business was developing flight simulation software.

Our development activities had us traveling to many airports, airshows, exhibitions, conferences and museums to conduct research for various software projects. We would travel to locations and airports that would give us unobstructed views of the aircraft in flight. These photographs are part of the activities that later turned into flight simulation products.

Though I am no longer involved with the business side of aviation, I still shoot airplanes (so to speak). These photographs below span the decades from 1980 through today.

Looking back this was an interesting and very enjoyable part of our business.

We hope that you enjoy these photos.

 cc-by-ndlicense logo   This work by Arnie Lee is licensed under a Attribution-No Derivatives (CC BY-ND 4.0)

Window Seat Please

Birds Eye View

For business travel, I’ve endured my share of airplane flights.

I’m not one to watch the airline’s inflight movies so to help pass the time onboard I spend a good amount of time looking out of the window at the earth below.

In years past it wasn’t easy to determine the flight path so I would take a photo of the scenery and try to identify the location at a later time. Nowadays it’s fairly easy to track the flight path using your phone’s GPS feature.

Sometimes the weather and the lighting wasn’t always cooperative for photography so some of the photos are “rough”. Anyway, below is a collection of some of the sights that I’ve enjoyed on a few of my flights.

 cc-by-ndlicense logo   This work by Arnie Lee is licensed under a Attribution-No Derivatives (CC BY-ND 4.0)