[Porsche-O-Phile]

I know exactly the phenomenon you're mentioning - LAX is a great airport precisely because the visibility is often so good so you get that perception a lot. As has been said, it's airspeed that matters and as a general rule they'll always take off & land into the wind (helps reduce ground roll, etc). IIRC LAX won't "turn around" until it's a 7+ knot tailwind component. This is to to keep the preferred operational direction to the west. Less noise, etc. A pilot can always refuse that and request whatever runway is desired but 99 times out of 100 they'll play ball with the controllers and the agreed-upon operational restrictions worked out with the local yokels.

Inside the FAF (final approach fix) you want a stabilized approach - aircraft in landing configuration, slowed to approach speed and no significant control inputs or changes to power. The FAF for an ILS approach (used most often at LAX or approximated on a visual) is glideslope intercept. Since they keep the big boys high for noise over the basin that's a long way out - can be 20-25 miles. So they'll dump the gear, flaps, etc. and get dirty way out there and line up in the queue. I think required entrail spacing is 2 minutes unless you're dealing with heavies or actual IMC (forget offhand it's been a while and one of the controllers on here can correct me if I'm wrong).

Figure a +/- 150 knot ground speed on final (give or take) is 2.5 miles a minute. 2 mins separation between aircraft is 5 miles. So on those nights you're seeing them lined up 5 or 6 back you're seeing them about 25 miles out and about 10 minutes from the runway. When something is coming towards you there's no sense of movement / parallax so it seems to stand still especially if it's on a straight path for 10 minutes so yea it looks like they're standing still even though they're definitely motoring along towards you.

When learning to fly at night one has to keep their eyes moving. If you see a lighted object moving that's a possible hazard. If you see a lighted STATIONARY object that's a very likely hazard!