Newport Beach Image from Airplane Newport Beach, California

Newport Beach from above includes a harbor, many golf courses, and lots of tiny buildings and swimming pools seen in the aerial photo taken on a flight from Monterey to San Diego.

Newport Beach is the easiest coastal city to photograph from the air. We're not saying our photos come out even fair when flying on commercial aircraft. Greasy windows, window scratches, atmospheric conditions and even the aircrafts own exhaust make aerial photograph tough on commercial jets and planes. We still take these photos anyway because they offer a perspective you just can get up high enough to take in small craft that you rent. While photo above was taken as we zipped along the coast, another photo that's more commonly available is the view of the Newport Pier as you leave Orange County and fly over Catalina Island.

The Newport beaches and harbors can be confusing. There are some manmade islands that don't make much sense when you drive on the ground. But from the air above Orange County, the picture starts to take form and does, indeed, make sense. For instance, at the bottom right of the photo just where the long stretch of tan points up to the middle right at a diagonal, that's Balboa Peninsula. A little tiny pier seen in the photo is the Balboa Pier, which has a Ruby's Diner on the end of it.

At the bottom and middle of the photo, you can see the islands formed. The island that looks like a New York strip steak is Lido Island. Those are all pink tile roofs that give an incredibly uniform look.  When you drive on the island, the long streets are noticeable and from the air you can understand why. Look how long and thin Lido Island is.  The other major island that strip steak points to is Balboa Island. If you look at something on it that appears to be a hairline fracture, that's really two parts of the island connected by a bridge. The appendage (smaller section) is Little Balboa.

Without getting into additional details, suffice it to say there are many golf courses. In the photo we notice at least five public and private golf courses.

On the upper left 1/3rd quadrant you can see Orange County Airport landing strip in the bounds of Santa Ana. Other cities in the photo include Costa Mesa (left side) and Irvine (right).

California is filled with things to see from high up above.