America from the Air: A Guide to the Landscape Along Your Route

by Daniel Mathews, James S. Jackson

An illustrated guide, in both book and CD-ROM, of landscapes seen from commercial airplane windows across the United States.

This is a guide to what an airline passenger sees from his seat while flying over the United States. Through its ingenious construction and a map of preferred flight paths, it's easy to find those pages that correspond to whatever flight a passenger happens to be on, and then to identify features that can be seen from the air. The book marries geology, natural history, and human history for a glorious portrait of the continent, from the Atlantic City Boardwalk to Mount St. Helens.

Each two-page spread features an aerial photo with captions identifying features passengers will see and an essay interpreting the features. Each chapter is a Flight Corridor, with pages sequenced to follow a trip from takeoff to landing. Because many flight paths overlap, the fifteen corridors cover the forty most heavily traveled flight segments in the continental United States, plus many others. In many regions of the country, readers will have a new page to read about every twenty minutes. The entire book is also on the included CD-ROM, which can easily be used on a laptop in the air.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

386 pages, Paperback

First published December 14, 2007

Reviews

[Rosalind Jackson]

My dad co-wrote this. It got a ridiculously good review from the LA Times, but we suspect the reviewer was drunk.

[evelyn taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hey, I just finished reading your story and wow. Honestly, it was so vivid, like the whole thing was playing out in my head while I read.

I’m an artist, and I usually take on commissions for Webtoons, Comics, Manga, Character Art, and Cover Art. And honestly, your story has that spark to look absolutely stunning as a comic or webtoon . I’d be really excited to bring it to life visually (no pressure, of course, but I couldn’t resist trying).

If you’d like to take a look at my work, or chat more about the idea, feel free to reach out on Discord ( eve_verse )

Looking forward to hear your thoughts!

Regards,
Evelyn

[Michaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can now identify hog farms and gas wells from the air.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ever read any the Roadside Geology of (state name) series? Well, this is very similar, except it is geared to riding a airliner instead of a caver's pick-up. Of course, I won't (I hope) ever use it for its intended purpose; I hate commerical airliners.

The book comes with a handy CD, so if you take a laptop on your trip, it can be used instead of the book. I was suprised at the attention to geology, I bought the book, and assmued it was more of an air-going travelogue. But one of the authors (Jackson) is a geologist, and there is plenty of geology in the book. Some of the pages are sans geology, which for those pages are ok. Most of the places described have overviews of the history and human sides of the areas, along with the geology and geography. The caveat is that each area covered is one page, so the geological essays are concise. If one is unfamiliar with geological terms, time scales, and processes, the write-ups would be useless. So if you buy this, and take it on your next flight...and you don't has a geology degree, take along a physcial geology book.

Good book.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book as far as pictures go; it has photos of many different parts of the country one might see from an airplane window. Of course, many of the photos are from satellites and are very different views from what you'd actually see from a plane, but I think this will be an issue with any such book. Photo shoots from planes cost a lot!

The drawback to this book (for some) is that it really, really gets into the geology of the landscapes. I enjoyed learning some of this, but even though I can usually read scientific writing and know a tiny bit about geology already, it was often very hard to follow due to the specialized language not being adequately explained for the layman. The author tried, but I don't think he was particularly successful. Something like an extensive glossary or guide to geological terms and phenomena that the reader could consult as needed might have helped. That, or a couple of years of college geology classes.

[Alisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, I haven't actually sat down and read this, but I have browsed it enough to see that it would be pretty interesting to have along on a flight. For anyone that doesn't just want to sit mindlessly but would rather know why things look the way they do, including clouds, it would be handy. Granted, it would be even handier to have an app that can get your real-time location and feed you details more precisely, but this is as good as it gets in book form. There is a CD that comes with the book, but I haven't checked it out yet.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm one of those people staring out of the airplane window and trying to remember topographical details so I can identify them later. So I enjoyed this book, but was disappointed that it just mentioned several big landmarks in the text. I wanted it to follow my favorite routes and tell me what every city and river was.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

color aerial photopraphy with views of harbors, cityscapes and points of interest, geological features all in one bound volume with an accompanying cd. I used to wish for something like this. Varying altitudes.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

How amazing! I always wondered what those things I saw from the airplane window were.

[Bynum · Rating 5 out of 5]

I flex over Pyramid Lake in NV. I only know that because of this book. Fun takealong for those of you that fly too much.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at what you see when flying over specific areas of the country.

[Rosa]

Just borrowed this from the library. I like the photos and the CD that comes with this.