By clicking here, you will be seeing a virtual flight around the Phoenix area in 1998.  This flight was created through Geographic Information Science, by combining a Landsat satellite image and topographic information. This is a copyright-free product, courtesy of the Visualization Laboratory of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The virtual flight has the following sequence:

Opening: Full Landsat scene, where metropolitan Phoenix is placed in the upper right hand part of the image.

Early: The scene rotates so that the "flight line" is looking and moving eastward over the Gila River and the White Tank Mountains on the western side of metropolitan Phoenix.  The flight then drops low and flies over Sun City West and Glendale.

Middle: As the flight line passes over northern Phoenix, the view rotates towards the south and then west — even as the virtual plane is still moving east.   As the view is towards the southwest, you see the Phoenix Mountains below you.

Late:  The look is to the west over the Salt River and Sky Harbour Airport, even as the virtual plane is flying to the south.  Tempe Butte and ASU are visible, and you can see the proximity of Tempe Butte to South Mountain (in the upper left).  The virtual flight "ends" over Chandler looking towards the airport to the northwest.