Totally normal: planes floating in mid-air
(youtu.be)
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We used to go to the Kemah boardwalk on Galveston Bay when baby hurricanes were coming in, watch the boards ripple up like piano keys as the waves pounded them. You could drink margaritas and enjoy the show.
Several times while we were doing that we noticed what I believe is the same plane, a small private plane, just floating there, weaving back and forth some but just appearing to hover up there above us as we drank.
He was 'flying' but not moving, the headwinds were such that he could 'fly' while not moving forward at all. All he had to do was keep his nose pointed into the wind and he had lift.
Optical illusion, or actually not an illusion but simply headwinds causing the plane to have lift - to fly- but with little perceived forward motion.
People don't always understand how planes fly, it is the pressure under the wings which cause lift. You can achieve that pressure a number of ways, by curving the top surface of the wing so air travels further there and so causes a pressure differential measured against the bottom of the wing and by gaining speed to increase that differential..... or simply by heading into the wind.
Yeah that IS totally normal, visually it presents a Thing to ponder unless you understand how flying works.
https://www.highskyflying.com/can-an-airplane-hover-and-stand-still-in-mid-air/
Nope. It is not pressure under the wings causing lift. It is negative pressure on top of the wing (caused by the longer distance the air must flow) creating a low pressure area into which the wing is sucked.
Similar but different.
For small planes that makes perfect sense. Large jets though? And barely off the ground?
Yes and compounded by the size. The bigger the size the less it appears to be moving, especially near to the ground.
Talking of headwinds/tailwinds over aircraft, I was flying back to camp in Germany with a storm chasing us, my normal cruise would be around 125kts, my doppler showed us having 220kts groundspeed! Fastest I'd ever been in a helicopter! We beat the storm.
The principles don't change for size... yeah, for jumbo jets as well as piper cubs.
The wings on a B-52 bomber rise 22 feet from standing still to take-off, measured at the wing tip. That is 'lift' causing that, the larger and heavier plane requires more wing area to create the lift but the principle is the same. Science demands it be that way, the wing is designed to create 'X' amount of lift and does so, the only way a plane can fly is to meet the science parameters. Big, small, light or heavy, low altitude or higher, doesn't matter, Flight is Flight. The science has to work the same for us all IF it is science.
Air pressure is always higher at lower altitudes, so you get more lift technically.
https://files.catbox.moe/rz37vb.jpg
Correct.
2:42 and 3:07. If they are moving forward, why aren't they going towards the objects that the camera is moving towards. Instead they move away...
Think larger, ask yourself how many variables and perspectives are involved in the image, what known parameters are constant and what are not?
But have it your way, or ponder the science your self.
https://files.catbox.moe/gwtg41.png
Because the aircraft isn't going as fast as your brain thinks it should be. With full flaps, and a slow approach speed it does look like it's almost static until it's very close to the ground.
3:31 why does it stay above the same group of trees?