The Flat Earth Society
Flat Earth Discussion Boards => Flat Earth Q&A => Topic started by: MNMorgan on November 03, 2012, 03:50:18 PM
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I am interested in the theories put forward on this site but I have some questions. If the idea of a spherical world is in fact a NASA conspiracy then how come the Soviets showed the exact same findings during the space race and also confirmed the shape of the earth from first hand accounts and pictures. Does this mean the entire cold war was a hoax played out by NASA?
Another thing I'm having trouble with, I have previously flown around the world. I didn't meet any ice walls and witnessed the curvature of the earth first hand.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks, Matthew.
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Yet another pilot has joined us.
It was the space race. Each side tried to out do the other. I am just surprised that it stopped as abruptly as it did. Otherwise, we would have landed on Mars in the 70s.
Also, in both FET and RET, you can travel east or west and eventually reach the same point. I don't see what your problem is.
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I definitely don't see how that can be possible, surely if the world is flat then you would meet the ice wall after travelling so far in one direction. And I honestly don't have any "problems" I'm just interested to hear new points of view and opinions.
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You're the 5th pilot this week. Do any of you ever do any flying?
The cold war was not a space race. It was a photoshop race. The two countries decided to compete to see who could pull off the most audacious hoax and fool their respective people. They needed to pick something absolutely ludicrous and settled on a man walking on the moon. The first nation to convince their people of something so outrageous would win.
This was an important race, because it was to show who had the most power over their respective populations and how far they could push those people into believing anything the politicians said. After WW2 it had become apparent that hearts and minds were a massive part of winning any war and that without the support of the people, you couldn't win anything.
As it turns out the USA won. The russians had the scientific equipment to stage a hoax such as rockets and altitude suits, but the USA had Hollywood. In a studio in California, NASA staged a moon walk with special effects like no one had seen before. The American public lapped it up, the Russians conceded defeat and the photoshop race was over.
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Surely if so many pilots come here they must be questioning the shape of the Earth. I mean, there is no way that the few people who arrive at this site happen to all be pilots who randomly queried the Earth's shape, there must be a correlation. Or... the more likely case is that the few people who come here think that modifying their profession on their online persona will make their Earth shape stance more solid.
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Surely if so many pilots come here they must be questioning the shape of the Earth. I mean, there is no way that the few people who arrive at this site happen to all be pilots who randomly queried the Earth's shape, there must be a correlation. Or... the more likely case is that the few people who come here think that modifying their profession on their online persona will make their Earth shape stance more solid.
Well if I was a pilot I would be asking questions too, they see the flatness of the earth every time that they are in the air.
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Although I am only a junior co-pilot I have in fact clocked over 500 air hours in commercial flights with RyanAir, more if you count training.
What in particular supports the FEC's theories and beliefs? There is a huge amount of evidence to the contrary so you can see why people may be skeptical.
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Although I am only a junior co-pilot I have in fact clocked over 500 air hours in commercial flights with RyanAir, more if you count training.
You must have a rich Daddy. What's a Ryan Air TR? 27K Euro ex VAT?
What in particular supports the FEC's theories and beliefs? There is a huge amount of evidence to the contrary so you can see why people may be skeptical.
Look out of the window next time you fly. It looks like a flat disc. That has to be the most compelling evidence anyone could ever wish for. When your eyes tell you its flat, why would you believe someone else telling you its round?
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You say it looks like a flat disc, however, this is also exactly what you'd expect to see if the world was spherical. You would see only the circular convex lens-like portion of the earth that you were currently flying over. This is how large spheres work.
I'm feeling a lot of hostility coming my way, but I really just want a mature conversation. You cannot expect everyone to believe straight away and to be rude and brinking on offensive to visitors to the sight seems like a bad policy.
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You say it looks like a flat disc, however, this is also exactly what you'd expect to see if the world was spherical. You would see only the circular convex lens-like portion of the earth that you were currently flying over. This is how large spheres work.
I'm feeling a lot of hostility coming my way, but I really just want a mature conversation. You cannot expect everyone to believe straight away and to be rude and brinking on offensive to visitors to the sight seems like a bad policy.
Hostility is the natural response to most newcomers, as it's usually what we receive from them. We also get a lot of pilots who enjoy "flying around the world" in their spare time. You seem civil, though. Circumnavigation is very possible on a flat earth, by travelling in a circle that's centered on the north pole.
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You say it looks like a flat disc, however, this is also exactly what you'd expect to see if the world was spherical. You would see only the circular convex lens-like portion of the earth that you were currently flying over. This is how large spheres work.
It could also be a huge donut shape. Occam's Razor: if it looks flat it most probably is flat.
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Ok, I see how that might work. My last skepticism is regarding lunar eclipses. They have bee, for the longest time, the best way of showing the shape of the earth since before space travel. When a full Moon occurs in the plane of Earth's orbit, the Moon slowly moves through Earth's shadow through many different angles. Every time that shadow is seen, its edge is round. The only shape that always projects a round shadow is a sphere. How can this be possible if the earth is indeed flat?
By the way, I am genuinely a pilot, I'm no ace, fighter jet pilot but I have been in the air more then most which is why I was so interested with this site and it's views.
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Just moving this to FE Q&A.
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Thanks :]
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And I see what you mean by the way others have behaved towards and treated you, absolutely unacceptable to be like that towards anyone just because of their scientific beliefs :/ I really can empathize with you there.
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I was just irritated by your thread because we have an identical one already and I've answered the 'I've flown a really long way in an aeroplane' question a dozen times this week already.
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php/topic,56362.msg1408457.html#msg1408457 (http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php/topic,56362.msg1408457.html#msg1408457)
I tried to steer the topic towards something else (space race and conspiracies) but you wanted to go back to talking about aeroplanes. Its your topic, talk about whatever you like, but I can't feign interest in this one again. Someone else will walk you through it, I'm sure.
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The 'pilot story' scepticism is really just a result of there being so many people who come to this site and claim to be pilots or NASA employees. Of course, some of the RE'ers (yourself included) turn out to actually be pilots, and in fact down the years a number of FET proponents have been pilots (including Thork, above). However, our initial reaction is typically scepticism, simply because a lot of the self-proclaimed piltots are clearly, well, not.
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The only reason I steered away from the space race, cold war, NASA line of inquiries is because I cannot offer any proof to say that is wasn't a conspiracy in the same way that I would assume you could not offer any to the contrary.
But this eclipse question is one that is really puzzling me.
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Oh and just one more thought, my friend is a civil engineer and I've just been talking to him about the FES. He made the good point that when very tall and/or very long bridges are built the bottom of the bridge has to be measurably shorter then the top length of the bridge to compensate for the earths curvature. It is, of course, a very small compensation and difference but apparently it can be of some significance.
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Its a myth.
Please read the Humber Bridge Statistics
The bridge towers are 36mm (1.4 inches) further apart at the top than the bottom to take account of the curvature of the earth.
However this is actually addressed in the wiki.
It transpires that no one has ever actually measured the distance to confirm it, and that whilst the bridge should allow for curvature, its only a theory.
A round earther actually wrote to the Humber bridge for clarification. Here is the reply he got
There is the mail address [email protected] on page http://www.humberbridge.co.uk/administration.php (http://www.humberbridge.co.uk/administration.php) and everyone can write and ask about the matter as I did. And the answer was following:
There is no evidence of this, unfortunately, it is merely a theoretical
and, I have been told, rather inprecise calculation.
Yours sincerely
Peter Hill
General Manager & Bridgemaster
Humber Bridge Board
Ferriby Road
Hessle
East Yorkshire
HU13 0JG
Many of the older RErs will remember Zork. I didn't just make him up. He was a pain in the butt for ages. But fell flat on his face with this.
Conclusions: RET expects buildings to account for earth's curvature. However its just theory, there is no evidence to support this.
You may also ask your civil engineering friend if they use tools like laser plumb lines when they build skyscrapers. If this is the case and the earth is round, this means the top floors of skyscrapers would have more sq.f floor space as the walls progressively splay outwards. Ask your friend if they charge more in rent for the extra floor space in skyscrapers, the higher you go. (They don't and advertised floor space is always the same on all floors in a 'square' skyscraper).
A flat earth really is the only sensible conclusion.
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I don't think it would need to be the case with skyscrapers as the area of ground they cover is given a near perfectly flat foundation but I'll agree that there is no evidence for bridges needing to take into account curvature. However, I feel there is a far greater wealth of information and evidence pointing towards the earth being spherical then flat.
I do appreciate that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and please do contact me if you find anything interesting. And after all, nobody really knows anything about out universe for sure and you have as much of a chance of being right as myself.
Pleasure speaking to you all.
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What has a flat foundation to do with anything? If the earth is round, the walls need to lean away from each other to be vertical. So either the plumb line is the most useless thing ever invented and the walls of a building lean inwards, or walls are vertical, plumb lines work, floors are all the same and everything is as you would expect ... except then the earth must be flat. You can choose which you want to believe.
Farewell.
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I don't think it would need to be the case with skyscrapers as the area of ground they cover is given a near perfectly flat foundation but I'll agree that there is no evidence for bridges needing to take into account curvature. However, I feel there is a far greater wealth of information and evidence pointing towards the earth being spherical then flat.
I do appreciate that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and please do contact me if you find anything interesting. And after all, nobody really knows anything about out universe for sure and you have as much of a chance of being right as myself.
Pleasure speaking to you all.
It sounds like you are leaving us. :'( You should stick around. You might actually enjoy it here. We have wet T-shirt contests on Thursdays.
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They always come back.
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What has a flat foundation to do with anything? If the earth is round, the walls need to lean away from each other to be vertical.
The curve would be so slight that you could just build a perfectly flat foundation. The walls would not lean away from each other, if that were the case.
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Then the walls wouldn't be vertical would they?
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Why wouldn't they be?
I've illustrated the situation. This is how one might build a foundation if the earth were spherical. Obviously, the curvature is greatly exaggerated for effect.
(http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/bb342/Alexandur/FETdiagram.png)
The area in red represents a perfectly flat foundation, upon which four vertical walls could be built.
EDIT: Apparently I misunderstood the true definition of vertical. A vertical line must be aligned with the gradient of, in this case, the earth's gravitational field, so I was mistaken.
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Why wouldn't they be?
I've illustrated the situation. This is how one might build a foundation if the earth were spherical. Obviously, the curvature is greatly exaggerated for effect.
(http://i1201.photobucket.com/albums/bb342/Alexandur/FETdiagram.png)
The area in red represents a perfectly flat foundation, upon which four vertical walls could be built.
EDIT: Apparently I misunderstood the true definition of vertical. A vertical line must be aligned with the gradient of, in this case, the earth's gravitational field, so I was mistaken.
I think the sign inside the house was at least accurate ;)
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Those walls are not vertical for a round earth. Vertical would mean they stand straight up and are line with the earth's centre.
(http://i47.tinypic.com/1zyb0p.png)
Think of a plumb line. Its pulled to the centre of a round earth. So the walls need to be in line making a thin wedge shape, if they are to be considered vertical.
You've draw walls that actually lean in. And that's no use.
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I have to agree with Thork here. Particle, in your diagram, the walls aren't in line with the centre of the earth. They therefore are not vertical.
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Yeah, I simply misunderstood the actual definition of vertical. Another glorious victory for FET.
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carrots are round, oranges are spheres like the earth; paper is not like the earth,we are able to go "around" the world, as the famous film around the world in 80 days not across the world in 80 days. quote zoom "around" showing the world is sphereical and it sounds like what the world is :-B
thank you
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carrots are round, oranges are spheres like the earth; paper is not like the earth,we are able to go "around" the world, as the famous film around the world in 80 days not across the world in 80 days. quote zoom "around" showing the world is sphereical and it sounds like what the world is :-B
thank you
Oranges are used all the time in reference to a round Earth, but this is the first time I have seen a carrot used. That is an odd choice for a vegetable. Anyway, the Earth is not a carrot or an orange, so there is no reason to believe that it must be round just because they (or at least the orange) are round.
Also, you can walk "around" the floor of a room. You can also drive "around" the block. Something does not need to be spherical in order for you to circumnavigate it. Therefore, if the world is flat, you can go around the world in 80 days. You don't need to go across it.
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I dont think a war of paint pics will be able to settle it... Simplest solution would be for someone to use a program like AutoCAD. Simply make semicirlce with the radius of the earth (Scaled down obviously) then simply find 2 tangents that are a feasible distance apart for a foundation, then draw perpendicular lines from each point, and measure the difference in distance between the tops and bottoms... My view is it will be marginal, if even detectable on a scaled down version...
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??? No the 'paint war' (those two pics ::)) were to illustrate the theory. Now the theory is understood by all, the maths is very easy. Some basic trig will tell you how much RET pretends that walls lean.
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??? No the 'paint war' (those two pics ::)) were to illustrate the theory. Now the theory is understood by all, the maths is very easy. Some basic trig will tell you how much RET pretends that walls lean.
Have you done the maths anywhere? and come to any conclusions yourself? Or is this a typical the maths could show it... But we not really bothered situation?
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And saying the use of laser guides is evidence for FET... This is going on the presumption there is gravity, and this gravity is immensely strong (Black hole level gravity) and that the bend of the laser would be noticeable over a short distance, such as foundation, or height of a building...
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Well, you need a real life example. The best example is actually the old world trade centre because it was a straight block. So the top floors should be wider than the bottom ones on a round earth.
The towers were 1368ft and 1362ft. Ok, we'll pick the taller of the two and wikipedia tells me its top floor was at 1347ft
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Wtc_arial_march2001.jpg/240px-Wtc_arial_march2001.jpg)
The floor plane is as so.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/69/World_Trade_Center_Building_Design_with_Floor_and_Elevator_Arrangment.svg/799px-World_Trade_Center_Building_Design_with_Floor_and_Elevator_Arrangment.svg.png)
The radius of earth is 2.0891×107 feet. (20,891,000)
So to the base we have an isosceles triangle of 20,891,000 feet for two sides and 208 for the top edge. With some basic trig I calculate that the width of the top floor therefore needs to be 208.0077280857326 ft.
So the top floor is 43267.21494338807069 sqft
and the bottom floor is 43264 sqft
So the top floor of the world trade centre had an extra 3 square feet than the bottom one! Space for a toilet, or a printer cupboard or something. Round earthers just ignore these things as if no one would notice. The building actually has 165 sqft more to offer than advertised in each tower. That's a few extra offices! And no one noticed?
Round earthers are playing for ignorance again.
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Alright but read my point re the use of laser as I saw mentioned in this thread or another... If the laser does not bend when making the foundation, this would imply the foundation is level, FE or RE... Remember foundations are dug into the earth, aren't just placed on top... Even in older structures, if guide wires or strings were used to determine it was level or flat, and these strings were pulled tort, there would be no droop or rise due to the the curvature of the earth... Which really nullifies the use of this argument for both sides.... One way I could see this argument being used, is perhaps the use of two towers miles apart, measuring the distance between the tops and bottoms... The towers would have to be of 2 totally different foundations, and far enough to provide a large enough reading, that allows for measurement errors...
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And re the maths, given the base if a square of 208 x 208, which gives 43264 sqft, and we take the top floor number u got, 43267.21494338807069 sqft, and we find the root of it we can get the measurement increase of each wall... which i get as 208.0077280857326... Minimal increase really...
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For metric readers like me, that an extra 2.35mm on each wall... Absolutely minute
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Is easy to claim 3 extra square feet, and it would be massively noticeable if it were bulging at some point... the fact its 2.35mm on each wall, shares out the 3 squared feet in a much less noticeable manner.... If u could detect that difference by eye it would be rather impressive...
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BAM THORK BAM
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Those walls are not vertical for a round earth. Vertical would mean they stand straight up and are line with the earth's centre.
(http://i47.tinypic.com/1zyb0p.png)
Think of a plumb line. Its pulled to the centre of a round earth. So the walls need to be in line making a thin wedge shape, if they are to be considered vertical.
You've draw walls that actually lean in. And that's no use.
that's a moot point. my bet is if you go measure from wall to wall at the floor and wall to wall at the ceiling of any 2 walls in your house, the difference will be more that what the earths curvature would require for those walls to be vertical.
your walls would have to be approximately 70 miles apart for their angle to be 1 degree... to do some measuring.
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You mean its an inconvenient fact that doesn't fit in with your idea of earth's shape? Very well, we'll ignore it. I'm sorry for bringing it up.
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You mean its an inconvenient fact that doesn't fit in with your idea of earth's shape? Very well, we'll ignore it. I'm sorry for bringing it up.
"Don’t confuse me with the facts."
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Is not as inconvenient as it is insignificant, so it doesn't present a problem in building skyscrapers, the base is always the same size that the roof if you are building a "block".
http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/books/big-questions/given-the-curvature-of-the-earth-are-rectangular-skyscrapers-widerat-the-top-than-they-are-at-the-base/2008/10/26/1224955822897.html (http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/books/big-questions/given-the-curvature-of-the-earth-are-rectangular-skyscrapers-widerat-the-top-than-they-are-at-the-base/2008/10/26/1224955822897.html)
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I had clearly muted Thork's point... WHY DID PEOPLE COME WITH MORE SHIT
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but the USA had Hollywood. In a studio in California, NASA staged a moon walk with special effects like no one had seen before.
Already been disproved. Try again.
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I am interested in the theories put forward on this site but I have some questions. If the idea of a spherical world is in fact a NASA conspiracy then how come the Soviets showed the exact same findings during the space race and also confirmed the shape of the earth from first hand accounts and pictures. Does this mean the entire cold war was a hoax played out by NASA?
Another thing I'm having trouble with, I have previously flown around the world. I didn't meet any ice walls and witnessed the curvature of the earth first hand.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks, Matthew.
How many opportunities have you had to look over the nose of your plane?
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sceptimatic, do you mean, to examine the nose, or to peer over it to see something below?
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I am interested in the theories put forward on this site but I have some questions. If the idea of a spherical world is in fact a NASA conspiracy then how come the Soviets showed the exact same findings during the space race and also confirmed the shape of the earth from first hand accounts and pictures. Does this mean the entire cold war was a hoax played out by NASA?
Another thing I'm having trouble with, I have previously flown around the world. I didn't meet any ice walls and witnessed the curvature of the earth first hand.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks, Matthew.
How many opportunities have you had to look over the nose of your plane?
I'm an airline pilot myself...a real one, who won't make the claim that I have flows across the world heading...and fail to see the point in this question.
I look down the nose often. At 37000 feet with the autopilot on, what the hell else am I going to be looking at. Crap gets boring after a while.
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The radius of earth is 2.0891×107 feet. (20,891,000)
So to the base we have an isosceles triangle of 20,891,000 feet for two sides and 208 for the top edge. With some basic trig I calculate that the width of the top floor therefore needs to be 208.0077280857326 ft.
So the top floor is 43267.21494338807069 sqft
and the bottom floor is 43264 sqft
So the top floor of the world trade centre had an extra 3 square feet than the bottom one! Space for a toilet, or a printer cupboard or something. Round earthers just ignore these things as if no one would notice. The building actually has 165 sqft more to offer than advertised in each tower. That's a few extra offices! And no one noticed?
This looks like an old thread that somehow rose from the grave, but the skyscraper question is an interesting one. I was getting ready to break out my super math powers, but it looks like Thork did the calculations. I'll assume they're correct.
You have a bottom floor width of 208 feet, and a top floor width of 208.007728 feet. So, the difference in the widths is .007728 feet, or .09274 inches. So right about 1/10th of an inch.
I can call one of the steel fabricators located here in town and ask if you guys want, but I'd be a little surprised if the beams are cut to that high a precision. So depending on how the beams are cut, the top of the building may be slightly wider, or slightly narrower, than the bottom. Consequently, one of the 4 building edges won't be *precisely* vertical no matter how much laser levelling you do.
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Was the distance between World Trade Towers different between top and bottom?
...and regarding the Soviet/US space race fraud: If both sides were in on the ruse surely the Russians would have cried foul when the US "reached" the moon first? What would have stopped them? They could go on to claim their own program was legit.
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Was the distance between World Trade Towers different between top and bottom?
...and regarding the Soviet/US space race fraud: If both sides were in on the ruse surely the Russians would have cried foul when the US "reached" the moon first? What would have stopped them? They could go on to claim their own program was legit.
Have you ever been out with a friend and watched him do something wrong, yet promised not to tell because he watched you do something wrong and never blew your cover?
Look at it that way.
Russia was doing it's own fake space program with Yuri Gagarin as the first man in space and all the other fake stuff, so it wasn't in anyones interests to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak was it?
This is basically off topic but I'll just add, that the cold war (in my opinion) was really just a ruse.
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On the contrary. Soviet Union and US were not "friends" during the Cold War era.
To use your analogy: these nations hated each other and either of them would have jumped at the chance to Rat out the other.
The fact is neither nation was cheating.
Now that we see private enterprise enter into space exploration, SpaceEx for example, are we to believe these people are also in on the fraud. Ellon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceEx is clearly a smart business man. Becoming entangled in a decades long government conspiracy doesn't seem like a good business model. Why would he do this?
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On the contrary. Soviet Union and US were not "friends" during the Cold War era.
To use your analogy: these nations hated each other and either of them would have jumped at the chance to Rat out the other.
The fact is neither nation was cheating.
Now that we see private enterprise enter into space exploration, SpaceEx for example, are we to believe these people are also in on the fraud. Ellon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceEx is clearly a smart business man. Becoming entangled in a decades long government conspiracy doesn't seem like a good business model. Why would he do this?
You don't know whether they hated each other or not , if you are honest.
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If the Earth is round, what stops a plane from just following a straight path once it's at cruising altitude, rather than following the Earth's supposed curve?
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I hope you're being sarcastic?
Planes do follow a straight path. It's called the Great Circle route and is the shortest distance between points on a globe. It only looks curved when depicted onto a flat map with the typical Mercator projection. If you had a globe and a piece of string you would see for yourself.
On your globe run the string between San Francisco and London. It's a straight line, right? The planes follow this line which, as you now see on your globe, heads over NE Canada and Southern Greenland.
But I suspect you already know this and I also suspect you don't have a globe at home.
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I hope you're being sarcastic?
Planes do follow a straight path. It's called the Great Circle route and is the shortest distance between points on a globe. It only looks curved when depicted onto a flat map with the typical Mercator projection. If you had a globe and a piece of string you would see for yourself.
On your globe run the string between San Francisco and London. It's a straight line, right? The planes follow this line which, as you now see on your globe, heads over NE Canada and Southern Greenland.
But I suspect you already know this and I also suspect you don't have a globe at home.
I'm on about a plane following the curve of the globe, How does it stay following it, instead of veering away from the planet in a straight line.
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I'm on about a plane following the curve of the globe, How does it stay following it, instead of veering away from the planet in a straight line.
Scepti, I think I've gotten to know you a little bit so don't think I'm not taking you seriously. This is a valid question, but the answer is fairly simple. And I'm not a pilot, so if I'm using proper flight terminology you'll have to forgive me.
One of two things would happen. Either gravity will naturally pull the plane down into a curved path, or, if the plane does continue on in a straight line, eventually gravity will cause the pilot to perceive, either from his instruments or just from feeling, that his nose is starting to edge up relative to the ground, so he can correct for this. In real life it's probably a little of both.
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I hope you're being sarcastic?
Planes do follow a straight path. It's called the Great Circle route and is the shortest distance between points on a globe. It only looks curved when depicted onto a flat map with the typical Mercator projection. If you had a globe and a piece of string you would see for yourself.
On your globe run the string between San Francisco and London. It's a straight line, right? The planes follow this line which, as you now see on your globe, heads over NE Canada and Southern Greenland.
But I suspect you already know this and I also suspect you don't have a globe at home.
I'm on about a plane following the curve of the globe, How does it stay following it, instead of veering away from the planet in a straight line.
This is a valid question. I urge Bilbo to think about it again. Strictly speaking, a great circle is still a curve, not a straight line. I can't find anything in a simple google search answering this question, so my guess is that whether flown automatically or manually, a plane has to adjust constantly for turbulence and wind. In doing this, the pilot, or autopilot, actively keeps the plane level, and at the correct altitude.
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A plane is not a rocket. A plane can only operate within the earth's atmosphere. Every plane has its performance limits and the farther from earth it climbs the lower the performance becomes due to thinning atmosphere until it eventually will run out of lift and fall back to earth. This, in actual practice, is considered poor technique. (See Air France flight 447)
A rocket on the other hand will travel in a straight line and off into space but this works on a much different set of principles.
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A plane is not a rocket. A plane can only operate within the earth's atmosphere. Every plane has its performance limits and the farther from earth it climbs the lower the performance becomes due to thinning atmosphere until it eventually will run out of lift and fall back to earth. This, in actual practice, is considered poor technique. (See Air France flight 447)
The limits of an aircraft are irrelevant. The question has to do with what keeps planes following the curve of the earth. Is it technique, or a quirk of physics?
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Also, a rocket fired horizontally like a plane will not follow a straight line. It takes a lot of maneouvring and thrust adjustment to get a rocket to move straight relative to a gravity source.
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Gravity keeps a plane from flying off into space.
When Lift and Weight are equal, which is the case during the cruise portion of an aircraft's flight, the aircraft maintains a constant altitude. Minor control inputs from the pilot or auto-pilot will ensure the plane stays at altitude. If no input was made by either the plane would wander up and down gently but due to designed aerodynamic stability it will always return, on its own, to about the same airspeed and altitude.
As I said earlier, it is physically not possible for a plane to continue in a straight line off into space. The atmosphere becomes too thin above about 60,000' for engines and wings to function.
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Gravity keeps a plane from flying off into space.
When Lift and Weight are equal, which is the case during the cruise portion of an aircraft's flight, the aircraft maintains a constant altitude. Minor control inputs from the pilot or auto-pilot will ensure the plane stays at altitude. If no input was made by either the plane would wander up and down gently but due to designed aerodynamic stability it will always return, on its own, to about the same airspeed and altitude.
As I said earlier, it is physically not possible for a plane to continue in a straight line off into space. The atmosphere becomes too thin above about 60,000' for engines and wings to function.
So, in other words, a pilot could, in theory, maintain a straight line path, and keep climbing and climbing until the engines shut off? If I'm understanding correctly this is sort of what I was trying to get at in my reply. At some point the gravitational field will be such that the pilot would notice that he's climbing, and absent any other physical phenomena that would return the plane to a curved path, the pilot would just do it himself.
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I think I see. As the plane moves along a straight path, gravity starts to pull back on it, causing it to slow down and lose lift, causing the plane to return to its starting altitude.
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I should have looked at this thread earlier.
I'm on about a plane following the curve of the globe, How does it stay following it, instead of veering away from the planet in a straight line.
altimeter.
So the top floor is 43267.21494338807069 sqft
and the bottom floor is 43264 sqft
So the top floor of the world trade centre had an extra 3 square feet than the bottom one!
wow. 3 sq ft spread out and added to the outside of 43,264 sq ft. I don't know why they didn't redesign the floor plans to take advantage of that. Redesigning differently of course for every floor from top to bottom.
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You're the 5th pilot this week. Do any of you ever do any flying?
The cold war was not a space race. It was a photoshop race. The two countries decided to compete to see who could pull off the most audacious hoax and fool their respective people. They needed to pick something absolutely ludicrous and settled on a man walking on the moon. The first nation to convince their people of something so outrageous would win.
This was an important race, because it was to show who had the most power over their respective populations and how far they could push those people into believing anything the politicians said. After WW2 it had become apparent that hearts and minds were a massive part of winning any war and that without the support of the people, you couldn't win anything.
As it turns out the USA won. The russians had the scientific equipment to stage a hoax such as rockets and altitude suits, but the USA had Hollywood. In a studio in California, NASA staged a moon walk with special effects like no one had seen before. The American public lapped it up, the Russians conceded defeat and the photoshop race was over.
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war. Make that six pilots.
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If the Earth is round, what stops a plane from just following a straight path once it's at cruising altitude, rather than following the Earth's supposed curve?
The altimeter measures atmospheric pressure based on a standard of 29.92 inches of mercury. As a plane is flying, the altimeter always displayes the airplane's altitude, and the pilot must set the altimeter according to the atmospheric pressure at the reporting station. The pilot will, if he's doing his job, always maintain a constant altitude, therefore the plane will always remain the same distance above sea level.
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I think I see. As the plane moves along a straight path, gravity starts to pull back on it, causing it to slow down and lose lift, causing the plane to return to its starting altitude.
No, as the pilot sees that he is deviating from his assigned altitude, he will gently return so as to not get written up by the FAA.
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
Look under 'history' and 'use'.
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
Look under 'history' and 'use'.
Why should I believe a conspiracy?
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
Look under 'history' and 'use'.
Why should I believe a conspiracy?
Where does it say that? There are no conspiracies for airbrushing I'd believe.
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
Look under 'history' and 'use'.
Why should I believe a conspiracy?
Where does it say that? There are no conspiracies for airbrushing I'd believe.
Can you prove that?
-
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
This doesn't prove anything.
-
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
This doesn't prove anything.
Actually bgamelson said that. :p
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
This doesn't prove anything.
Actually bgamelson said that. :p
Fail...
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This doesn't prove anything.
Nested quotes like that can be tricky, but if you click on the link for that quote that you provided, then you will see the nature of your failure.
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This doesn't prove anything.
Nested quotes like that can be tricky, but if you click on the link for that quote that you provided, then you will see the nature of your failure.
I am usually a master at nested quoting. I'll leave it there, because it will detract from people understanding what is going on. err actually nvm, just remembered where we are.
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Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
Is that the most intelligent statement you have for the time being?
-
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
Is that the most intelligent statement you have for the time being?
This doesn't prove anything for the time being.
-
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
Is that the most intelligent statement you have for the time being?
It was more intelligent that anything that you've posted.
-
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
Is that the most intelligent statement you have for the time being?
It was more intelligent that anything that you've posted.
It was more intelligent than anything he has posted for the time being.
-
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
Is that the most intelligent statement you have for the time being?
It was more intelligent that anything that you've posted.
Personal attacks by Markjo. Irony noted.
-
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
Is that the most intelligent statement you have for the time being?
It was more intelligent that anything that you've posted.
Personal attacks by Markjo. Irony noted.
Personal attacks by Markjo. Irony noted by Tausami for the time being.
-
Um, Photoshop didn't exist during the cold war.
No, but airbrushing did.
Can you prove that?
You're kidding, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbrush#Photo_retouching)
This doesn't prove anything.
It proves that you're a troll.
Is that the most intelligent statement you have for the time being?
It was more intelligent that anything that you've posted.
Personal attacks by Markjo. Irony noted.
Th*rk off.