Verified answer

Yep. The pilot just parked it on a convenient cloud and went for a walk.

I'm going to assume that the planes you are seeing floating are a good ways off and in the process of landing. And I will further assume that these are rather large planes, i.e., 747, L-1011, Airbus 300.

If that's the case, then what you are seeing is an optical illusion - sort of. Look at photos of boats or ships at sea taken from the shore or from a great distance. The camera compresses everything in the photo to fit it to the frame. With nothing to compare it against, the space between objects seems smaller than normal. Key word is "seems". It's the same amount of space.

When you view a large aircraft in the distance, it seems to be moving very slowly or even floating and not moving at all. Actually the plane is moving along at close to 180 knots or a little over 200 mph. If you were standing at the end of the runway you would be able to see just how fast these monster aircraft are moving.

Look at the moon tonight. Hard to realize that it is traveling at a couple thousand miles an hour.

Except under very peculiar circumstances and rare types of airplanes, they do not hover in the air. Only helicopters do that. They are always moving at a forward speed, and the other answers provided here explain why this is an optical illusion.

Also, pilots never leave the cockpit unattended. If one pilot has to get up and go to the loo, then at least one more pilot has to sit at the controls.

Congratulations! You have just discovered the Theory of Relativity!

When a plane is flying from side to side relative to you, you have to keep turning your head to follow it. Because of that, you can perceive the plane's motion.

When the plane if flying directly toward or away from you, it will not move side to side. You will see it in the same spot relative to you, and you will not perceive it motion, until the plane gets close enough where you have to keep cranking you head up to follow it.

Howard Hughes run into the same problem when filming flying scenes for The Hells Angels. Filmed in the cloudless Southern California sky, the viewer couldn't appreciate the speed of the planes in the dogfight scenes. Hughes moved the whole crew to Oakland, and re-shot the scene against the clouds so that airplanes were seen moving against the background of the clouds, and their speed would be apparent to the viewer.

That's relatively impossible. although some planes like the piper cub cant go more 87mph, but none can float in mid-air, what you're seeing is probably an optical illusion, in which a large plane moving at slow speeds appears to be floating, but in realty its moving very fast, i.e. 150-200 mph.

If it is a smaller plane and is closer to the ground they can do this by winds. The wind speed and direction differs with height so even when the wind is low on the ground it can be very high up above. Since a plane gets its lift from wind blowing in the opposite direction. (propeller engines) You can fly into the wind and sync your thrust with the wind.

My Cousin is a pilot and he explained to me that one time he was only flying seven miles per hour when the stall speed of his aircraft was 47 miles per hour. so he was flying toward the wind at 40 miles per hour so his airspeed indicator was 47 miles per hour but relative to the ground he was only going 7 miles per hour

Jetdoc is correct, if the airplane has a Convenience Cloud Compensation Petcock, or CCCP.

Or, it could be an optical contusion.

They are so far away that they look like they are not moving. Really, a commercial jet is flying at almost 400mph.

I think there just moving so fast it looks like that.