5 Most Impressive U.S. Airport Final Approach Views

[austlar1]

I think the Sao Paulo in town airport landing must be among the most spectacular in the world. Here is another landing clip that shows in detail the vast scale and high rise nature of the place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPTyXftT0bY

[bobdreamz]

On approach from east to west are South Beach,downtown/Brickell, Little Havana with Marlins Park :

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[azliam]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Landing from the west at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport.

Landing in San Diego.

My favorites are San Diego, Miami, and Honolulu. Here's a couple landings into Phoenix from the west:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlNA6OuGImY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OscsHc6v_84

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by azliam

My favorites are San Diego, Miami, and Honolulu. Here's a couple landings into Phoenix from the west:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlNA6OuGImY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OscsHc6v_84

Both videos are great.

I rarely land in Phoenix from the West due to timing and the prevailing winds. Early AM hours, the winds blow from East to West, afternoon heating hours they blow from West to East and we all know planes must take off [and therefore must land in the opposite direction] into the wind.

[chris08876]

LGA has some epic views. Most of the flight trajectories, depending on the window your seated, will give you quite a sight. Starts at 0:14 mark.



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EWR is also nice.

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[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Thank G*d. That's where I live. I don't want hundreds of planes zooming above me every day.

It really depends on how close you are to the runway.

Our 3-flat is DIRECTLY under the approach path to runway 10C/28C at ORD, with planes flying overhead every several minutes, but because we're 10 miles from the end of the runway, the planes are still like 2,000+ feet in the air as they fly over us and they aren't really all that noisy/disruptive.

The brown line el trains that rumble down the alley in back of our building every couple minutes are an order of magnitude louder.

Now, if you're a 1/4 mile from the end of the runway and the planes are flying over your home at less than 100 feet, like the bunaglows around MDW, that's an entirely different story.

[ChrisLA]

Originally Posted by bobdreamz

On approach from east to west are South Beach,downtown/Brickell, Little Havana with Marlins Park :

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Nice, never been to Miami but I would put the approach into the city as one I would like.

[sbarn]

There are many great ones, but the final approach into LaGuardia is my personal favorite.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by austlar1

I think the Sao Paulo in town airport landing must be among the most spectacular in the world. Here is another landing clip that shows in detail the vast scale and high rise nature of the place. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPTyXftT0bY

Pure urbanity. Really interesting with the heavy drops and increases in density in some areas. Towards the middle of the video it seems like those highrises are up against a huge park but obviously there are homes there. I wonder what their urban planning codes look like.

I was originally going to comment on SD, but this blew me away and I couldn't not comment on it.

[DZH22]

Boston's airport is too close for comfort, but the views are excellent.

Boston out the airplane window by 9spades, on Flickr

JAK_8480 by Jack Silver, on Flickr

Boston, Massachusetts by Franklin McKay, on Flickr

[plinko]

I was 'lucky' enough to fly into Kai Tak in its last week of operation in July of 98. And of course we had a missed approach. An Air China 747 from Taipei and he actually touched the runway and then took back off. First time I've ever been scared on a plane. Takes a lot of power to get a 747 back in the air.

It closed a couple of days later and I flew home from Foster's Chap Lap Kok. Beautiful and much more wide open facility.

The approach into PTY (Panama City) if you are seated on the left side of the plane and coming in from the Pacific side is marvelous.

NAP (Naples, Italy) is close in and fun coming from the west as well.

Favorite US?
LAX, SAN, PHX, BOS, MIA in no particular order. Usual suspects...

Sadly never flown into MDW or LGA.

[JAYNYC]

Originally Posted by Will O' Wisp

I've flown to airports all across the nation, and in my personal opinion not one holds a candle to my current hometown of San Diego. To the best of my knowledge there is a single approach in the world that gets closer to the downtown city center, and underneath the ground slopes upward until the tops of buildings feel like they'll nearly skim the landing gear (in fact a parking garage once had to have a portion of its roof removed as a hazard)

Skip to 7:45 or so for the good part
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In certain parts of downtown you actually look down at the aircraft as they land
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Simply stunning.

Hadn't flown into SAN in a while; definitely didn't ever recall having THAT view.

After seeing that, I'll have to revise my rankings (first post in this thread) to place SAN at a tie for #2 with LAS.

[Kngkyle]

Always sit on the left side when flying into O'Hare:

(skip to 4:00)

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[bnk]

Yes the left side flying back from Florida. Almost every landing starts over lake Michigan and heads north of down town west to O'Hare.


Day or night its the best view. Its like flying over an ocean lake Michigan is.

Originally Posted by chris08876

Vista, and its influence on the Chicago skyline silhouette.




Downtown and North Side from the air, Chicago, Illinois by Paul McClure, on Flickr

[badrunner]

I don't know about you guys but I don't like having large aircraft buzzing my skyscrapers. Airports are not urban amenities - they don't need to be downtown adjacent. LAX and O'Hare keep a respectful distance while providing fantastic views. Miami and SD final approaches are TOO CLOSE. Spread your wings a bit. You have the whole sky to work with.

[badrunner]

Views approaching and departing LAX:


LosAngeles-Feb2018 by Chris Valle, on Flickr


LA-Feb2018-3 by Chris Valle, on Flickr

[MonkeyRonin]

Minor gripe, but why are there so many (nominally at least) US-specific threads in the international forum?


Mexico City probably had the most impressive approach I've experienced, as it came down from the north and kind of looped around the city centre at low-ish altitude, giving an expansive view of the city's relentless urban mass. Something like this:


Mexico City by hawkstersf, on Flickr


Homer answer, but coming into Toronto from the east is good one:


Toronto from the Sky by Eric Van Ryswyk, on Flickr


Houston at night was pretty cool too.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by badrunner

I don't know about you guys but I don't like having large aircraft buzzing my skyscrapers. Airports are not urban amenities - they don't need to be downtown adjacent. LAX and O'Hare keep a respectful distance while providing fantastic views. Miami and SD final approaches are TOO CLOSE. Spread your wings a bit. You have the whole sky to work with.

I wonder what the minimums are for airport proximitty to downtown for the FAA to not care.

At 15 miles out, ORD is definitely far out enough (and its runways don't line up at all with downtown anyway), but MDW is only 8 miles out and its runway 4R/22L is PERFECTLY ALIGNED with the 961' tall 311 S wacker. Apparently 8 miles is enough distance, but I wonder what the minimum would be.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Homer answer, but coming into Toronto from the east is good one:


Toronto from the Sky by Eric Van Ryswyk, on Flickr


Houston at night was pretty cool too.

Toronto's is good and kinda completely forgot that I've seen it many times from a plane window. TBH, that picture doesn't do it justice. I would rank it top 5 for views among North American cities.

[maru2501]

NY and Chicago and the LA route where you go over the pacific and hook back

also Madrid

and that Chi silhouette photo is bananas