If you are interested I'd suggest the book How Maps Lie.
Actually I've read that one. It has to do the deficiencies of 2D projections of 3D objects. It just points out the pros and cons of various map projections. However, no where does it suggest that our actual understanding of the worlds geography is deficient, or that the world is actually flat. It just discusses the problems with representing inheritly 3-dimensional spaces on 2-dimensional mediums, like a flat map of a round earth. In fact, that whole book is SO round-earth, I'm surprised you can touch it without burning your skin. But I see why you posted it as a reference. It just doesn't support your claims at all. For instance, no where does it claim that the real-world position of features on a 2D map are unknown or truly misrepresented. It just says that 2D maps can be misleading, unless you understand their deficiencies.
First off, maybe you'd like to give me your source for the statement you made here:
In the Southern Hemisphere there are both eastward and westward jet streams.
I'll be very interested in that one.
Divito has already covered it.
Way to man up, there, Tom. I've already responded to divito's source. Since you refuse to act like an adult and address the issue that you know I'm raising with your statement, I will literally spell it out for you.
Show me your source that suggests eastward jet streams form south of tropics, or even IN the tropics during winter. Why is your source for this information so secret that you don't want to give it to us? Is there something in it that hurts the FE case?
Latitude and longitude says nothing about the true form of the earth.
But they do. As proven by the fact that people have been successfully navigating with compasses for a long time. Planes and sea vessels determine headings by using their current location, translated to a lat/lon point, and computing the direction to reach another lat/lon point. If latitude and longitude coordinates were completely arbitrary, as you claim, this would simply not work.
But I want to understand what you are suggesting, completely, first. Are you suggesting that on a flat earth, longitudinal lines aren't straight, and latitudinal lines aren't round? Or that longitudinal degrees on the flat earth are not all equal? I mean, later you go on to say:
It would only mean that the lines of latitude are closer or farther together than assumed. We can squish and contort the Flat Earth model limitlessly to reflect the established paths of commuter flights.
This seems to make what you're saying a little clearer. You seem to be suggesting that we could squish lines of latitude to account for the obvious extreme difference in distance between degrees of longitude in the southern hemisphere. This way, diagonal distances can be accounted for. But what about nearly exact east/west travel? And, after applying this distortion, north/south travel is thrown out of wack. Regardless, no amount of distortion of latitude lines would account for the fact that longitudinal distances would be extremely wrong in the southern hemisphere.
But what about the data? What can I show to support my obviously befuddling views?
And how do you plan to show these discrepancies? Do you plan to go to LAN.com and give us an automatically generated flight time estimate based on Round Earth maps? That says nothing about the actual flight time.
Ah, maybe it's just me, but your writing tone is slightly different here. It reeks of fear.
Obviously I never considered doing the things you suggest, since you've made it abundantly clear that you won't accept them. Rather I defer all the way back, back to near the beginning of this thread where I first join the fray.
What I'm really getting at is, wouldn't pilots have to be in on the conspiracy, since they would have to use the correct FE maps in order to account for the flight time and positions of distant airports?
You'll notice that my original argument has nothing to do with offering direct proof. You obviously would never accept any officially collected data, as it would be too easy for a conspiracy to control. You have even made it clear you won't accept any data I PERSONALLY claim to gather. Rather, right off the bat, I deferred to the many pilots of the many flights that occur in the southern hemisphere. What I clearly said was, THEY would have first-hand data. If the world were flat, they over time, would collectively notice that they could not count on successfully navigating in the southern hemisphere using RE maps. No matter how hard you cry "latitudinal distortion," you are talking about significantly more surface area in the southern hemisphere to account for than is reported on a RE based map.
And further on this same point, you keep repeating in your arguments that you are only talking about commercial commuter air traffic. I'm assuming the reason you keep doing this is that you expect that to be the only data available to discuss. Very clever of you. First you try and close off the discussion to everything except commercial flights, then you try and establish the data from those flights as unreliable. However, part of the point that I made originally was that a pilot doesn't have to be on a commercial commuter flight to notice that his map of the southern hemisphere is useless.
Furthermore, I don't REALLY want to introduce this now because we already have enough minutia to discuss, but what about sea travel? I'm sure you have some theory that we all can agree has an extremely low-probability of being true to explain the discrepancies of that. Save that for another thread.
We could create a south centric model of the Flat Earth which would get pilots to their destination, too.
Sure you could. In that case just swap the word "South" in all of MY previous arguments with the word "North."
We don't need every square inch of the globe charted, mapped, and verified. Just a few major discrepancies would be sufficient. Am I right about that, Tom?
Nope. All it would show is that the a location is not in the precise place that it should be.
Exactly. And what I'M saying is that people, over time, would NOTICE that locations are not in the precise places they should be, because this would be prevalent across A WHOLE HEMISPHERE.