Bird's Eye Views of Detroit

Take an aerial tour of the Motor City in this compilation video, which was produced using some of the best footage from the "Bird's Eye Views of Detroit" collection.  Check out the fantastic drone views of the GM Renaissance Center, the Detroit River, Michigan Central Station, and more.  

Interested in sponsoring the Detroit collection?  The sponsorship package includes re-branding of this compilation video with the sponsor's name and logo, which can be used on the sponsor's website and social media pages.   

Reel Aerials created this highly stylized drone video of Detroit, often known as the Motor City.  The city is situated on the Detroit River in eastern Michigan.  Detroit is credited with giving birth to the modern automobile and is still considered the worldwide center of the industry.  From roughly 1920 to 1940, it was the fourth largest city in the country.  While declining auto industry employment has caused a dramatic loss of population (totalling over 60% from peak), it's currently experiencing a renaissance.  

Detroit, Michigan is the birthplace of Motown Records and the “Big Three” automakers in the United States: General Motors, Ford Motor Company, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The Motor City grew and fell with the auto industry, leaving it with a modern downtown and large sections of rough, abandoned neighborhoods. The fantastic city art, as well as the blend of abandoned sections and a vibrant downtown with its Comerica Field can be seen in this aerial film by pilot Jeff Walrich.

Located on the banks of the Detroit River (part of the Great Lakes system, connecting Lake Huron with Lake Erie), Detroit, Michigan is the second largest city in the Midwest. Also known as "Motown," "Hockeytown," and "The D," the city was the first in the USA to be named a "City of Design" by UNESCO. See some of that renowned architecture, including the Guardian Building, Ally Detroit Center, and Renaissance Center (now General Motors headquarters) in this piece by Reel Aerials.

This drone video from Detroit, Michigan will amaze you.  Contributor Reel Aerials used a DJI Phantom 4 to give you a top-down look at the Renaissance Center, the most visible landmark on the Motor City skyline.  It consists of seven towers, the tallest of which is the city's highest skyscraper.  Opened in 1977, the 73 story central tower has a height of just over 220 meters (727 ft.).   Conceived by Ford scion Henry Ford II, it now serves as the headquarters of Ford's arch-rival General Motors.  

Top contributor Jeff Walrich put together this excellent drone video showing how the city of Detroit, Michigan is undergoing an improbable urban renaissance.  Most of the video was filmed around the Corktown neighborhood, which is located between downtown and the Ambassador Bridge.  The video features some great footage of the most well-known Corktown landmark: the Michigan Central Station.  Opened in 1914 and once one of the busiest passenger train stations in the USA, it's now being redeveloped.

Contributor Reel Aerials created this beautiful drone video of Detroit's Ambassador Bridge.  It spans the Detroit River (part of the Great Lakes system) between the city of Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.  When it was completed in 1929, its central span of 560 meters (about 1.85k ft.) was the world's longest.  Crucial to the automobile industry, it continues to be one of the most important international border crossings on earth; fully 25% of US-Canadian trade in goods passes over its 2.3k meter (7.5k ft.) length.  

Here's a terrific aerial view of downtown Detroit, Michigan.  The city on the Detroit River still has an impressive-looking downtown, even as it has slipped from the ranks of the USA's largest cities.  The video will give you some nice views of the city's three tallest buildings: (1) the Renaissance Center (now the home of GM headquarters), (2) the 90's-era Ally Detroit Center, and (3) the 20's era Penobscot Building, which was the world's eighth tallest building when it was completed.  

The Pontiac Silverdome was built as the home stadium of the Detroit Lions, Detroit's National Football League team.  It also was the home of the Detroit Pistons NBA team from 1978-88.  Built in the 1970's in Pontiac, a Michigan auto factory town northwest of Detroit, the stadium was abandoned in 2006, a few years after the Lions decamped for the new Ford Field in downtown Detroit.  AirVuz contributor and pilot Garci1jd used a drone to aerially film this relic before its ultimate demolition in 2017.  

The Michigan Central Depot Train Station is one of the great landmarks of Detroit, Michigan.  Opened in the early 20th century, the depot was once one of the USA's busiest passenger train terminals.  Closed in the late 1980's, the station was used as a filming location for a number of movies, notably the 2007 blockbuster Transformers, and was also used in the TV show Detroit 1-8-7.  Seen here in this drone video by bradrichertv, the station is now being re-developed by its new owner, Ford Motor.  

For a first upload to AirVuz, skyview productions brings us this excellent 4k drone view of Detroit, Michigan.  The video was shot from the perspective of the Detroit River, which connects Lake St. Clair (and thence Lake Huron) to Lake Erie, forming the border between the USA and Canada.  The video features footage of Detroit's main skyscraper landmarks, including the Renaissance Center, the Ally Detroit building, and the Penobscot Building, the fourth-highest in the USA when it was completed in 1928.

In its heyday, downtown Detroit, Michigan was considered one of the USA's most impressive downtown districts.  During the pivotal decade of the 1920's, the city was virtually tied with Chicago for skyscraper construction and not far off New York City's pace; no other city in the world came close.  In this drone video by Reel Aerials, you'll get a bird's eye view of the modern Detroit skyline, which has seen considerable new construction but in which the 20's era architecture is still quite prominent.  

No other major American city ever grew as quickly or shrank so dramatically as Detroit.  From its peak around 1950, the population within the city limits has declined by well over 60%.  Among other things, it's resulted in thousands upon thousands of abandoned buildings - upwards of 70,000 by some counts.  If there is a bit of a silver lining here, it's become a bando heaven for first person view (FPV) pilots.  You'll get a taste of this phenomenon in this excellent "bando tour" by FPV pilot KittFPV.    

Contributor Reel Aerials created this spectacular drone tour of central Detroit, Michigan.  The video features some amazing shots (including top-down views) of downtown, the third biggest city in the world for skyscraper building during the booming 1920's (a decade when Detroit was home to the USA's second largest concentration of brokerage accounts).  The video also features some of the newer additions to the cityscape, such as the Renaissance Tower and the stadium complex just north of the central core.    

One of the numerous ways in which the city of Detroit, Michigan has been reinventing itself has been in the realm of urban art.  With tens of thousands of abandoned buildings in this famously low-density city, Detroit presents a vast canvas for some of the world's most creative graffiti and mural artists.  In this drone video by jdginnovation, you'll see how this is being taken to an even higher level - with some of the world's first augmented reality murals! 

In this video, you'll get an aerial tour of the site of what was once the world's largest factory.  The Ford River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan was made of 93 buildings which covered an incredible 16 million square feet.  It initially was a steel plant, then integrated forward into parts and finally to fully assembled vehicles beginning with the famed Model A in 1927.  The giant manufacturing complex employed an incredible 100,000 workers at its peak.  The site closed in 2004 and was more or less demolished by 2008.

Detroit, Michigan has been undergoing a quiet resurgence since the depths of the Great Recession when GM and Chrysler both sought bankruptcy protection.  Much of what is happening has to do with repurposing of land in this city which has always been one of the least densely populated of the USA even before it lost 60% of its population.  In this drone video by Reel Aerials, you'll get a drone's eye view of one way in which this process is occurring: urban farming, right in the heart of the Motor City! 

Check out these excellent drone views of downtown Detroit, Michigan compliments of Reel Aerials.  The video opens with a shot of the Penobscot Building, an Art Deco masterpiece which was the world's tallest building outside of New York and Chicago when it was completed in 1928.  Starting at the :37 mark there's a nice pull-back shot looking towards the Detroit River and the sun rising in the east.  Other highlights include a nice shot at the 1:50 mark of the Book Tower, which was (briefly) the city's tallest when it was completed in 1926.

Contributor SpaceJam Studios created this amazing drone video showing the rebirth that is taking place in Detroit, Michigan.  Beginning with the riots of the late 60s, the city experienced a series of body blows culminating in the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler in 2009.  Although its population is barely 40% of its peak, the city is experiencing a rebirth in its core downtown area, particularly in the area around its world-class sports arenas: Ford Field, Comerica Field, and Little Caesar's Arena.  

The corporate behemoth known as General Motors was largely assembled via series of acquisitions in the first few decades of the 20th century.  Arguably the most important of these was Fisher Body, the world's largest auto body maker; GM acquired 60% of Fisher in 1919 and the remainder in 1926.  In this drone video by AirVuz contributor and pilot skyview productions, you'll get an aerial view of Fisher's Plant #21, one of its most storied plants.  Opened in 1919, it was shuttered in 1982 and is now in an abandoned state.

Check out this drone video of a well-known state park in Detroit, Michigan, compliments of AirVuz contributor Mark Houston.  The William G. Milliken State Park is located on the Detroit River, just downstream from downtown Detroit.  It's one of the main attractions on the International Riverfront, the name for the stretch of the river running from the Ambassador Bridge to Belle Isle.  Built on the site of a former marina, the park covers 13 hectares (just over 30 acres) and was Michigan's first state park located in an urban area.  

The world's first skyscraper building boom occurred during the 1920's and it was centered in three US cities: New York, Chicago, and (perhaps surprisingly to some) Detroit, Michigan.  Detroit's population grew by an astonishing 60% in that frenzied decade, when nearly a dozen skyscrapers over 100 meters (about 330 ft.) were constructed in its downtown.   In this drone video by Reel Aerials, you'll be able to see some of these Roaring 20's classics, such as the Penobscot  and Guardian Buildings, Book Tower, and more.  

This drone video by Reel Aerials features some great aerial footage of downtown Detroit. Beginning at about the :35 mark, you'll get flyover views of the city's three tallest buildings, in reverse order: (1) the third-tallest, the Art Deco classic Penobscott Building, completed in 1928 and at the time the fourth-tallest in the USA; (2) the Post-Modern Ally Detroit Center, the tallest completed since the 1970's; and (3) the Renaissance Center, Detroit's tallest building, which was completed in 1977.

Lake St. Clair isn't one of the five Great Lakes but it's very much part of the Great Lakes System, and it's sometimes called the Sixth Great Lake even though it's a tiny fraction of the size of the main lakes.  Situated immediately to the northeast of Detroit, Lake St. Clair connects to Lake Huron via the St. Clair River to its north and to Lake Erie via the Detroit River to its south.  In this drone video by skyview productions, you'll get an aerial view of the lake and the Detroit River in a partially frozen state.

Contributor Mark Houston brings us this aerial tour of Detroit's famous James Scott Memorial Fountain, which is located in Belle Isle Park on the Detroit River.   The fountain is named after a rather notorious Detroit playboy who died in 1910 and left a sizeable bequest to the city, with the requirement that the money be spent to build a statue of himself.  Constructed amidst considerable controversy, in the 1920s, the fountain was the filming location of famous scene from the 1973 movie Scarecrow starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino.  

Take an aerial tour of Detroit, Michigan in this fantastic drone video by first-time contributor AdolfMirand.  Most of the video was shot around downtown Detroit, which features a mix of 1920's era buildings as well as more modern architecture; highlights include shots of the Detroit Ally Center, the Art Deco classic Penobscot Building, and the Renaissance Center (currently the headquarters for General Motors).  You'll also be treated to some great views of Ford Field, the home of the Detroit Lions Major League Baseball team.  

In this highly stylistic piece by AirVuz contributor and pilot Reel Aerials, you'll get an aerial view of a highway interchange in Detroit, Michigan aka the Motor City.  Detroit has been at the center of the worldwide automobile industry for over a century, even as two of the Big Three carmakers here became insolvent during the Great Recession of 2008-9.  Not surprisingly, Detroit was also a leader in the construction of modern highways, which were some of the largest on earth when they were constructed.