'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again

WavMixer said:
Planes that make you go hmmm...

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One YouTube video deserves another, I always say!

Okay, I’ve never said that before. I made it up just now...

But, this is Part One of a three-part series, and there are references in the video to the website where the author deals with these things in more detail.

My takeaway?

There are no hovering airliners (dang it!) - as if I needed another video to know that - though that would be incredibly cool!

If there were hovering airliners, you can bet your bippy that Boeing or Airbus or whoever wouldn’t keep it a secret. They’d make it VERY public and enjoy the increased stock value!

 
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smitty_p said:
One YouTube video deserves another, I always say!

Okay, I’ve never said that before. I made it up just now...

But, this is Part One of a three-part series, and there are references in the video to the website where the author deals with these things in more detail.

My takeaway?

There are no hovering airliners (dang it!) - as if I needed another video to know that - though that would be incredibly cool!

If there were hovering airliners, you can bet your bippy that Boeing or Airbus or whoever wouldn’t keep it a secret. They’d make it VERY public and enjoy the increased stock value!

Click to expand...
I like that video explanation. That does explain what might be happening in some of the YouTube videos. When driving to and from work each day I drive directly under the LAX landing pattern. I drive on a freeway that runs north and south, while the landing pattern comes from the east going toward the west. This place me at a 90 degree angle from the planes on final approach. Most of the time I see planes going what seems to be the speed I would expect to see. However I have seen planes that seem to be going much, much slower than the claimed stall speed. Sorry I don't have video for this. Perhaps I'll set up a dash cam in hopes to catch this happening.
 
WavMixer said:
I like that video explanation. That does explain what might be happening in some of the YouTube videos. When driving to and from work each day I drive directly under the LAX landing pattern. I drive on a freeway that runs north and south, while the landing pattern comes from the east going toward the west. This place me at a 90 degree angle from the planes on final approach. Most of the time I see planes going what seems to be the speed I would expect to see. However I have seen planes that seem to be going much, much slower than the claimed stall speed. Sorry I don't have video for this. Perhaps I'll set up a dash cam in hopes to catch this happening.
Click to expand...

That’s no problem. There’s no need.

I get what you’re saying

I live near Joint Base Andrews (formerly, Andrews Air Force Base). Whereas I don’t see them as often as I used to, sometimes when I’d drive near the base, a C-5 Galaxy (which is an immense aircraft) would be on the approach for a landing.

Often, it would be just like the video you posted. I would be traveling in one direction and the plane would be approaching from the other. The C-5 would just seem to hang in the air.

In addition to what I posted earlier, the huge size of these aircraft, including large airliners, contributes to the sense of little or no motion.

There are various visual cues which our brains assemble to perceive motion and speed. One of those cues is derived from how quickly an object travels its own length. Girth and bulk add to the effect. That’s why a small, radio-controlled, toy car moving just a few miles per hour seems to be going really fast, but a full-size car traveling the same speed seems like it is just creeping along.

The same is true in the air. Depending on the variant, the top speed of a Cessna 172 is similar to the landing speed of a C-5, depending on how heavily it’s loaded. To see the Cessna fly, it would seem to be traveling at a pretty good clip. The C-5, which is about nine times longer than the Cessna, and is significantly bulkier, will appear to be barely moving.

It’s a matter of scale.
 
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