Darrell S wrote:

"As I was moving relatively slowly" quoting from your post, it sounds like
you were in your car driving. The APPARENT relative movement of an aircraft
being observed from a moving vehicle changes drastically if either the
aircraft or the car change relative headings. That could make it appear as
if the forward motion of the jet had stopped.
As for then "it continued climbing" is hard to explain. Perhaps you just
thought it had stopped climbing due to the apparent stoppage of any forward
movement.

yes, I was paying particular attention to how high it was, for obvious
reasons. When I fixed on its altitude relative to buildings, power
poles, the freeway, etc., for a few seconds the altitude didn't seem to
be changing. And for a few seconds my car wasn't moving at all and it
didn't seem to be moving either, or if it was it was going slower that
you'd expect a plane in takeoff to be moving. Then suddenly did it start
moving forward and up. It was just like a helicopter, except it wasn't a
helicopter.

Debbie