Why Do Planes Appear Slowly In The Sky?

Likewise, when traveling by plane, you can also see distant objects. like it’s going too slow you can feel. Average passenger planes at an altitude of 8,500-10,500 meters and traveling at a speed of 900-1020 km/h may seem slow to you.

The reason for this situation is completely it’s about the way our perception works. It even has a name in the literature.

We perceive nearby objects as moving “faster”.

For example, while driving in the car, the roadside trees (nearby object) are fast, distant objects such as the Sun or the Moon We see it as moving slowly.

Whereas, a passenger plane is actually moving quite fast as seen in this video.

The name of this condition in the literature is “motion parallax”. your field of view think of it as a framework, Objects moving at a constant speed across this frame are perceived as moving faster when they are closer than when they are at a greater distance.

This is what’s called “motion parallax”. This phenomenon the moving object it is valid relative to the observer (us who is looking at the plane while traveling in a car) acting relative to himself or to the object.

The percentage of our field of view also causes us to perceive the distance the object moves differently.

The effect is due to the distance the object moves compared to the percentage of our field of view. For example, in the image above, an object 100 meters away can move 20 meters in a certain direction and field of view only moves about 25% of the time.

However, a 20-meter displacement on an object only 40 meters away, the object is completely out of sight. causes.

In short, thanks to motion parallax, we perceive a distant aircraft as slower.

Thus, we perceive objects close to us as moving faster than distant objects. To determine this distance visual cues base and motion parallax is formed.