The aerostatic instability of cable-supported bridges is studied, with emphasis placed on modeling of the geometric nonlinear effects of various components of cable-supported bridges. Two-node catenary cable elements, which are more rational than truss elements, are adopted for simulating cables with large or small sags. Aerostatic loads are expressed in terms of the mean drag, lift and pitching moment coefficients. The geometric nonlinear analysis is performed with the dead loads and wind loads applied in two stages. The critical wind velocity for aerostatic instability is obtained as the condition when the pitching angle of the bridge deck becomes unbounded. Unlike those existing in the literature, each intermediate step of the incremental-iterative procedure is clearly given and interpreted. As such, the solutions obtained for the bridges are believed to be more rational than existing ones. Comparisons and discussions are given for the examples studied.