Comment by colechristensen

This is a kind of relativity thing.

The only connection a plane has to the universe is the air around it. It simply does not know or care what the ground is doing until the ground is quite close.

A small plane in a very high wind is perfectly happy having a "backward" ground track.

Same thing as if you were trying to swim upstream in a fast river. How fast you move through the water doesn't have anything to do with how fast the water is moving across the land.