driving home, i saw a massive plane just hovering close to the ground. it was dead still once i saw it, and it stayed there for at least 10 seconds. it wasn’t until i turned my head away and back and saw the end of it turning away at a stop light.
from a perspective, my speed was around 40 mph.
super freaky, i thought it was a new piece of architect or a balloon, but it was not.
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Large jet planes (I assume that’s what you’re talking about) cannot be still in the air – it just appeared that way to you. It was an optical illusion resulting from the angle of your eyes to the plane and the ground. Smaller planes *can* actually be airborne and stationary over the ground if they’re flying into a strong headwind.
Google short take off and landing or STOL. It’s really cool what the shape of a wing can allow for. That being said, you probably can attribute at least some of what you saw to your angle, speed and perception.
Far-away objects appear to be unmoving or moving slowly when in fact they are moving rapidly. Additionally, an object that is moving directly toward or away from you will also seem to be unmoving.
Combined with this is the fact that the sky often has nothing to measure movement against, just a steady blue or grey. This backdrop makes things appear to not move.
I have seen this myself on a number of occasions due to living near the SeaTac Airport near Seattle. It is kind of cool and weird-looking, but it is an optical illusion.
Was it a windy day? Airplanes do not care how fast they are moving over the ground. They only care how fast they are moving compared to the air. If they plane was flying into a strong wind it would appear to be moving slower (than normal).
They aren’t going all that fast with flaps and slats deployed. Maybe 150 mph depending on the commercial plane type. You’re also likely not very close to it, so everything appears slower.
Just look up at night one clear night and spot a starlink satellite. It’s also definitely, without a doubt, not moving at walking speed
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Ironically, small airplanes can do exactly that! If you’re flying north at 60 miles an hour, and the wind is blowing towards the south at 60 miles an hour, you’ll do exactly that!
Hover in the air.. you can’t move forward or backwards as the thrust forwards is as great as the push backwards.
Large airplanes can not do this, they move too fast.
I was in a taxi around London Heathrow airport a few years ago.
As the road curved gently to the right, it created an optical illusion with a massive A380 airliner that was off to my right… coming into land. My moving perspective made it look like the 380 was hovering. It wasn’t, of course… it was probably doing 200mph… but it looked fixed in place for at least 10 seconds before I lost sight of it.
It was weird, but I understand it. There are youtube videos of this same effect that I’ve seen since.
Large commercial planes have a minimum airspeed well in excess of what can be considered normal wind speed, meaning it couldn’t have been still and in the air and is instead likely an optical illusion.
Were you driving parallel to the direction of the plane but in the opposite direction? This situation is known to cause this illusion as it is difficult to estimate the speed of something without a fixed reference (not available when the backdrop is just the sky) or at least a good idea of how far away it is (breaks down past 20ish meters due to how close our eyes are to one another). All you can really assume when both of these are missing is that the plane is moving *past* ***you*** *at* ***some*** *speed*, whether that is at 0mph, 500, or anywhere in between.
A cessna 172 has a stall speed of 55kph (101km/h) (, that means that if the wind moves over the wings at more than 55knots, the plane will fly.At ground level, thats rare, but happens, but a few hundred feet up in the air that happens all the time. So if the pilot pulls back on the throttle until he reaches zero in groundspeed, but still has 55kph or more in wind speed against him, the plane will stand perfectly still in relation to the ground.So its actually not appearing to stand still, it IS standing still (in relation to you)
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