Land surface temperature (LST) is a key variable in the study of the exchange of energy and water between the land surface and the atmosphere, and it influences land surface physical processes at regional and global scales. With the objective of quantifying the spatial variability and overall representativeness of single-point surface temperature measurements recorded by NOAA's Climate Reference Network (CRN) sites and to improve the accuracy of satellite LST measurements, airborne campaigns were conducted over two vegetated sites in Tennessee, USA during 2010 and 2011. During the campaigns, multiple measurements of surface temperature were made using Infra-Red temperature sensors at micrometeorological tower sites and onboard an instrumented Piper Navajo airborne research aircraft. In addition to this, daily LST products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), onboard the NASA Terra and Aqua Earth Observing System satellites were used. The aircraft-based and satellite-based LST measurements were compared with the in situ, tower-based LST measurements. Our results show good agreement between in situ and aircraft measurements.