Jon Searles' photos with the keyword: aerial

We actually weren't on an A380 for this trip, as the only one Air France has is the one seen above. Instead, we were on an A330, which is not extremely common, but not very rare either. I took this was we were flying over Albany, NY, on our way to Newark Libery International Airport in New Jersey (the literature now says New York since they think it's clearer, but Newark is still in New Jersey, whatever they say). Running left to right (really north to south) is the Hudson River, but that delta that you can see there is where the Mohawk flows into the Hudson, hence Albany's historic importance. The larger island to the right (south) is Van Schaick Island, and the smaller one to the left (north) is Peebles Island. The much smaller island in front (to the west of) Peebles is Simmons Island, and the pair of islands to the left (north) are Goat and Second Islands. The area on the shore in front of (to the west of) Simmons Island is the Albany suburb of Cohoes. Albany is the northern limit of navigation on the Hudson River (the Erie Canal, now the Barge Canal, connects the Hudson with the Great Lakes via the Mohawk Valley), and it's connected to the Mohawk River in Little Falls. Between Albany and Little Falls, Locks have been built in the Mohawk to facilitate navigation, and to the west of Little Falls the two waterways are seperate. Albany is also the State Capital of New York, being a politically acceptable distance from New York City, which controversially has a larger population in its metropolitan area (which spans three states) than the rest of the State. The State has, officially, a population of 19,541,453, and New York City has 8,363,710 officially, but the total metropolitan area of New York is about 18,000,000-19,000,000 people, depending on how you measure it. Even if taken in isolation, the figure of 8,363,710 represents close to 43% of the population, so it's easy to see why people are concerned about the city having disproportionate influence in a State that overall is politically different from the City. This isn't the first time the capital has been moved north, either. Originally New York City WAS the capital of New York, but in 1777, it was moved to Kingston, and only in 1797 was the capital moved permanently to Albany. The city of Albany is actually older than New York, however, dating to 1540 when it was established as the French trading fort which later, under Dutch ownership, became Fort Nassau in 1614, and then Beverwyck from 1654-1664. The town acquired the "Albany" name in 1664, after the British invasion. There's a Wikipedia article available here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany,_New_York

This is maybe my best-ever photo of New York City, taken from our A330 as it approached Newark. The only editing I had to do on it was up the contrast, as the plastic airliner window generally wrecked the contrast on all my aerials this trip (ice may have had as much to do with this as the plastic). You can see the Empire State Building in the rear center of the shot, and if I'm not mistaken the river is the Hudson, since we were on approach to Newark on this flight.

I didn't originally know all the specifics of this yard, as I'm not from the area, but was clearly a New Jersey Transit yard since the trains are EMU's, and the yard is on the wrong side of the Hudson to be a Metro North yard. Stevensiegel260 gave me this on Flickr: "Technically, your photo is not of Newark... it's of the Town of Kearny. To the right is the Pulaski Skyway heading toward Jersey City, which is on the other side of the Hackensack River. The train lines are New Jersey Transit's Midtown Direct/Morris & Essex Lines and the Port Authority's PATH rapid transit line." It's not too far from Newark Libery International Airport, where we would be landing on this trip.

Here's another shot of an odd section of New York. That airport down there isn't LaGuardia, it isn't JFK, it isn't Newark, it isn't MacArthur, or even the now-closed Flushing, but rather is Floyd Bennet Field, which has some claim to being the city's oldest airport, being built in 1929, although Flushing was actually built in 1927, as was Republic. Roosevelt field, the origin of Lindbergh's transatlantic flight, was even older, dating to 1917, but it doesn't survive today, having been replaced by a mall. Therefore, Floyd Bennet Field's claim to being the oldest in the New York area is very dubious, although it's probably the second oldest within the official city limits (Flushing would be the oldest, I think). It's now a museum, and features some of the oldest surviving airport buildings in the United States, and therefore the world, dating back to 1930. It doesn't host regular flights anymore, meaning that Republic can lay claim to being the New York area's oldest functioning airport within New York State, although Teterboro airport in New Jersey is even older, dating to 1917, and is owned by the Port Authority of New York.

Yes, this really is New York City. A few years ago I saw an amazing panorama of lower (southern) Manhattan from a JetBlue flight, and kicked myself for not photographing it. I've been trying to get another chance ever since, and once again this year I failed. I did get a little bit of the lesser-known parts of New York, though. This is upper (northern) Manhattan, and you can see the north end of Central Park down there, featuring the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, not used since a year before it was named as such. It was built in 1862, meaning it was in service 1862-1993, receiving water from the famous Croton aqueduct, as it was never big enough to be a collecting reservoir.

I took this on a flight into the U.S. recently, on February 24th, if I'm not mistaken. Unfortunately most of the photos I took on this flight didn't come out, since I got the exposure wrong on a camera (my Lomo 135BC) that already had light leaks.

I have surprisingly few photos of New York City and its surroundings considering how often I fly through there. I also grew up regularly travelling through New York City, although I've never lived there.

This was an edit of Picture 2, obviously. I'm hoping that this improved it somewhat, but I posted both just to see what all of you thought.

This was better than Picture 1, I thought, since I zoomed and angled it better.

As we continued down the coast of the U.S. towards New York, the lighting and the clouds, I thought, provided ideal opportunities for photography, even if my window was icing up a bit.

A few minutes later I was able to zoom in and get a better angle on Cape Cod.

We were flying over Boston at FL350, actually, so that illustrates the distance that you can see from that altitude, as if you looked straight you could see Cape Cod, and if you looked down, as here, you could see Boston!!

The captain of the plane told us to look out the window because Cape Cod was off to our left, and luckily I had a window seat.