Aviation question
 

I was driving through North Charleston SC on the highway, passing the airport. I saw a huge plane coming in and figured it would come whipping past me since we were headed towards each other. As I got closer I realized it wasn’t moving (or at least super slow). Does the military have cargo planes that can stay suspended in the air like a helicopter?

V22 Osprey? Not exactly huge though and very distinctive in appearance.

White with a blue tail or solid dark grey? And no, to answer your question, likely just an optical illusion.

They have very large airplanes. They seem to move slow because they are so big, but that is just a optical delusion.

I’ve watched the cargo planes down at Coco brach for years. This seemed just as big and seemed like it was suspended on a string, like a balloon. Weird.

Maybe it was an Osprey.. I was cruising along so maybe missed the propellers.

I pass the airport every day on 526. They fly the C5 Galaxy, KC-135 Stratotanker, C-130 Hercules, and C-141 Starlifter out of the Charleston airport. I’ve been directly under them when they are taking off or landing, and it looks like they are in slow motion. Incredible to watch.

If two airplanes are going the same speed.. The small one will look like its going twice as fast. Its an optical illusion and the theory is: You eyes/mind determines speed by how fast the object (plane) takes for it to move the length of its body through the air. So even if they are going the same speed, it will look like the smaller plane is going faster/further vs the big plane going slower

Probably C-17s out of Charleston

I see a lot of C17s and a few C5s around Wright-Patt. They look like they are barely moving. I always attributed it to the fact that they are so big compared to “normal” planes that they can be much farther away than they seem, and an object moving at a distance appears to move slowly relative to a static point of reference.

Was it really, really windy?

;)

I'm working near the reserve base at Westover, MA and regularly see the C-5s overhead and they look like they're hardly moving.

Another factor in perspective. If there were buildings or towers between the highway and the flight path an object on a reciprocal heading would seem to have little movement in relation to the structure in the foreground.

Boeing Dream Lifter perhaps?

I’ve seen the Dreamlifter up close and you can differentiate it from a mile away in the air.

https://www.amazingworldreality.com/2025/01/is-that-plane-really-stuck-in-air.html

Number 4 The Role of Parallax

If you’re observing the airplane from a moving vehicle, such as a car or train, the parallax effect comes into play. Objects closer to you seem to move faster, while distant ones, like airplanes, appear to move much slower or even remain stationary.

Quick Sea Story

It was a dark (mine shaft dark, my heart dark...) and un-stormy night during a WestPac.

We were flying at about 1500ft agl. At my 2 o'clock we picked up a white light but had nothing on our radar. We thought it was a small fishing boat.

It looked to be moving very slow, hard to tell, so we turned to investigate.

About a minute after our turn, the "fishing boat" flew over us at tremendous speed.

We picked up the navlights on the flying fishing boat about 30 seconds before the merge so I only crapped about half my pants.:D

Your brain assumes it is just another commercial airliner, but in reality it is much bigger, and further away so it looks like the same size. That distance make it look like it is just almost hovering.