As part of our honeymoon we took a flight from Las Vegas to the
Grand Canyon, which included several lookout stops on the South Rim
via tour bus. This is an excellent way to see the Grand Canyon on a
short time schedule.
The planes are specially produced for viewing down below. The windows
are oversized and slightly tinted for glare, which did not interfere
with my photographs though I did have filters and various settings to
play with. The seats are two to a side, and if you get lucky like we
did, you'll get the back row where there is extra space in the aisle,
which lent me more room to jump back and forth between the two sides
of the plane for the best scenery! The plane ride doesn't necessarily
traverse the park itself since air traffic is restricted, so these
images are of the lands leading up to it, which is just fantastic.
The flight takes you over Lake Mead and I believe part of Lake Mojave
also, so you get to see Hoover Dam from above as a bonus. The flight
was at least one hour each way and the whole trip was about 8 hours or
so, with a buffet lunch included at a hotel in the park. Very
nice.
Keep in mind the geography in this area and how that affects the plane
ride. A lot of turbulence which was at first a bit unsettling, then
quite fun for us as we realized it was all too normal. There were some
pretty big jumps for such a small plane that carried only about 20-25
passengers. Keep this in mind so your trip is not ruined like the poor
Irish girls in front of us who puked the whole way!