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Flat Earth Debate / Re: "How does a plane follow the curvature of the Earth's atmosphere?"

« on: January 16, 2017, 04:18:38 PM »

Most airliners have two sets of ailerons used for roll control; an inner set which can also be used as a a flap, called a flaperon, and an outer set of ailerons. The outer set gets locked out as the aircrafts speed increases and becomes effective again as the aircraft slows down. This is because at high speed, control surfaces become more effective and less effective at low speeds, therefore only one set is required at cruising speed and both sets provide positive roll control on takeoff and landing. You can see the inner one moving in flight during turbulence and for minor course corrections like avoiding thunderstorms and changing track.

As far as following the curvature of the Earth goes... they dont. Airliners set a standard altimeter setting once passing above what is called the "Transition Altitude". This is 29.92mb in the US or 1013.25 hpa everywhere else in the world. If the cruising altitude is 35,000 feet, the aircraft is flying at the pressure level of 35000 feet, and rarely is it actually 35000 feet above Mean Sea Level.

The autopilot receives an altimeter input and simply maintains the desired pressure altitude. This works because pressure levels in the upper atmosphere are very stratified.

The actual height above ground is called the "Geometric Altitude" and can vary by several thousand feet from the set pressure altitude. This doesn't effect aircraft performance however as all performance predictions for any airliner are based on flying at a standard pressure level rather than a geometric one.

Pressure altitudes are generally higher than the equivalent geometric altitude in the tropics and less than the equivalent in cold climates. It is not unusual in the tropics to be flying at a geometric altitude higher than the maximum altitude for the aircraft whilst flying at a pressure level lower than the maximum.

Hope this helps.

BTW the FE is completely wrong. I'd be dead if it was true.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Questions from an Airline pilot

« on: September 19, 2015, 05:49:29 PM »

The point is that the FE map, of any sort, massively distends one of the hemispheres, in this case the Southern Hemisphere, which is where I fly from.

It renders countries such as Australia massively oversized.

In airline operations, the navigation systems based on a globe, work. They would not work on a FE map of any description. It is an example of real world considerations impeding on a theory.

I was Air Force trained using map and compass basics. I have navigated aircraft very large distances using those techniques. When I first joined the airline I now work for, GPS was not being used and aircraft used Inertial Nav. A reversion kit was available should all the inertial systems fail. It required using the same map and compass skills I had been taught.

Aircraft navigation is a critical, life or death function. It has to be done correctly and it is based on a GLOBE, not a flat map.

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Flat Earth Debate / Re: Questions from an Airline pilot

« on: September 19, 2015, 02:09:20 AM »

They have no official map. But a user named FEScientist is trying to make a map based off flightimes.

Well, the flight time Sydney to LA is 13.5 hours. Since the Santiago flight would fly over LA in this scenario and is roughly half way, that would make the Santiago flight well over 25 hours flight time or almost 9 hours longer than the current longest route we fly, Dallas to Sydney, of 16.5 hours.

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Flat Earth Debate / Questions from an Airline pilot

« on: September 19, 2015, 01:32:35 AM »

Hi Flat earthers,

I was wondering if you could explain these anomalies in the theory.

I have superimposed the supposed FE tracks that an airliner from the company fly for would have to fly in order to carry out two of its regular scheduled services i.e. Sydney to Johannesburg and Sydney to Santiago... vis



And..



I won't go into the technical details of fuel requirements at this stage, (suffice to say that the range requirements exceed any current airliner, but these flights are available for anyone to to buy a seat and watch exactly where they point themselves after takeoff. Neither of them head anywhere near the northern part of Australia, in fact quite the opposite. Neither is over land for any more than 5% of the total flight time. This can be verified by siting at a window, seat on the Sydney -Jo'Berg flight which is all daytime. It s a boring view believe me.

Thoughts?