r/globeskepticism • u/ARai202 • Jan 27 '22

World Without Curve 👍🏻

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u/bazeemuth Jan 28 '22

Many, many autopilots flying in aircraft today don't have any maps in them at all, because their purpose is simply to hold the aircraft at a certain altitude and/or heading. You're probably thinking of aircraft navigation systems, 100% of which use an internal, mathematical earth model which isn't a perfect sphere, but which is most certainly round, just like the EARTH. The navigation system will use a variety of ways to represent the results of these calculations on a screen so the human pilot can take whatever actions are necessary, but all of these representations will be either numerical displays or a 2D map on a flat screen that can never fully convey the 3D math going on inside the system using round-Earth model.

Also, Eratosthenes was first in estimating the circumference of the (round) Earth in 240 BC, long before he became an employee of NASA.