hi there, original poster here.
firstly i would like to thank the one or two folks who took the time to make reasonable responses, and mention my support for the existence of the FE society, all science needs it's critics.
however after going through the faq again, as directed, i'm afraid i still have a few queries:
Problem 1: Stars that appear to be above the south pole - not covered in the faq, and quite clumsily addressed here. The southern cross, in addition to the twin pointers, do infact create a consistent reference point to magnetic south, visible from all points in the southern hemisphere, it's been used by sailors for centuries and is readily testable on any given night. In addition, rotating 90 degrees about the earths surface, ie: moving as an observer from New Zealand to South America, rotates ones perspective of the constellation by that very angle, which is unexplained by any optical phenomena. I'm afraid refuting this simple, repeatable experiment requires nothing short of assuming a physical universe other than of our own, one that exists with the sole intent of making it appear like we're on a sphere.
Problem 2: Flight time. I'll reiterate - If indeed New Zealand and South America are on distant edges of a great disc, i should have flown over most of the surface of the disc to get there, however, it was a much shorter flight, across the pacific ocean, stopping in beautiful Samoa. I'm afraid there simply isn't a plane in existence that could make that distance in that time, unless of course, my and indeed everyone in any kind of travel industry in the southern hemisphere was in on the conspiracy too. On closer inspection, within the FE model the only people who seem to be conspired against are people living in the central northern hemisphere, everyone else would need to ignore the fact the land masses around them are vastly different to any map.
Problem 3: Weather patterns. Again, completely unaddressed - how am i getting accurate, testable imagery of antarctic storms from hundreds of miles above the earths surface, as they pass over the south pole, from Argentinian Antarctic Territory to New Zealand Antarctic Territory? A flat earth model would mean this storm is vanishing over one edge of the disc, and appearing at another. My colleagues posted at Scott Base in the Antarctic would simply laugh. Which raises an additional point, the Antarctic is not as remote and unexplored a region as you may assume. Most southern hemisphere nations with any economic or scientific interest there have bases on the continent, which are not as far apart as they would be should they exist on the outer circumference of the world - where may i add, they experience extended days and nights identical to the Arctic, only at opposite seasons, something else not accounted for in a flat earth model, or the faq.
Problem 4: Circumnavigation of Antarctica is commonplace, takes far less time and travels far shorter a distance than would be needed if the antarctic were the circumference of the world. When traveling around the antarctic with it on your right, you are traveling almost constantly in a starboard facing, meaning the land mass is contained within the vector of travel, rather than outside of it. Obviously this problem relates to the previous one, but seeing as the description of Antarctica in FE theory is the central impossibility i see here, this leads me to continue to believe that FE theory is only a plausible conclusion to someone who has not traveled outside of the central northern hemisphere. FE seems to me more an ignorance of the basic physical phenomena of the southern hemisphere, than a disbelief of a spherical earth.
Also, after a little research, it seems the experiments i've seen linked here, in which one 'proves' the earth is flat, have some dire problems in their math. They presume the diameter of the earth to be about 1/100th of it's actual size, so yes, they would produce a result disproving we live on a tiny sphere.