I'm a pilot and I have some queries.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

 

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.     

Just moving this to FE Q&A.

Thanks :]

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.   

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

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.

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.

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.   

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. 

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

They always come back.

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.

Then the walls wouldn't be vertical would they?

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.



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.

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.



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

Those walls are not vertical for a round earth. Vertical would mean they stand straight up and are line with the earth's centre.



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.

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.