ompare those flight times on a globe (the right side of Fig. II.2), we see two things. First, the direct Sydney – Santiago flight time of 12 hours 40 minutes is much less than the sum of the Sydney – LA and LA – Santiago times (13 hr 50 minutes and 10 hr 45 minutes, respectively). Furthermore, the Sydney – Santiago flight route goes nowhere near the U.S.
Flat-Earthers claim that flights between cities in the Southern Hemisphere always make intermediate stops in the Northern Hemisphere. This is because distances between Southern Hemisphere cities get extremely large in the Flat-Earth picture, and because on Flat-Earth maps, many Southern Hemisphere routes go across the Northern Hemisphere, as with the Sydney – Santiago flights shown in the Flat-Earth map on the left side of Fig. II.2.
Contrary to assertions by Flat-Earthers, there are several direct flights between Southern-Hemisphere cities, as shown in Fig. II.3. By the way, you might be shocked that Flat-Earthers would falsely make claims that can be easily fact-checked. However, Flat-Earthers regularly make such statements. They will flatly (LOL 😊) make statements that are demonstrably false. Presumably this makes an impression on their fellow true believers.
The solid lines in Fig. II.3 all represent existing non-stop flights originating and terminating in Southern Hemisphere cities. On a Flat Earth, these cities would be so far apart that planes could not make the journey without stopping to refuel.
Continuing our discussion of flights, let’s look at airline flights between antipodal cities, or cities that lie on nearly opposite sides of the globe. Two cities that are nearly antipodal pairs are Auckland, New Zealand and Madrid, Spain (another example is Shanghai, China and Buenos Aires, Argentina). On a spherical Earth, if we fly in a “great circle” route between Auckland and Madrid, the travel distance should be about the same for all routes. Thus, the time should be approximately the same for any flights from Auckland to Madrid with a single stop en route. This is shown on Fig. II.4, where the left-hand side shows routes on a spherical Earth between Madrid and Auckland with intermediate stops in Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Santiago. We expect the travel times to be nearly equal for all three paths.
On the other hand, for a flat Earth the distances traveled would be very different (see the right side of Fig. II.4). Thus the Flat-Earth model predicts flight times to be extremely different for different paths. Here are flight times for six different routes:
• Auckland–Santiago–Madrid: 11h 0m + 12h 40m = 23.67 hours
• Auckland–Buenos Aires–Madrid: 11h 45m + 11h 35m = 23.33 hours
• Auckland–Los Angeles–Madrid: 12h 15m + 11h 5m = 23.33 hours
• Auckland–Tokyo–Madrid: 11h 0m + 14h 10m = 25.17 hours
• Auckland–Shenzen–Madrid: 11h 45m + 14h 0m = 25.75 hours
• Auckland–Perth–Doha–Madrid: 7h 25m + 11h 50m + 7h 15m = 26.5 hours
The flight times are nearly the same, in agreement with the spherical Earth prediction, and completely contradicting the Flat-Earth expectation. The same is true for the Shanghai – Buenos Aires approximate antipodal pair.
In the Flat-Earth theory that we are reviewing, Antarctica does not exist. At the southernmost latitude, Flat-Earthers allege that there is an ice wall that stretches around the entire outer boundary of Earth’s disc. There are many testable ramifications of this Flat-Earth claim.
First, it would be impossible to fly over the South Pole (since there is no such entity). Flat-Earthers will assert that no one has ever flown over the South Pole, or across Antarctica. They also claim that no one has ever circumnavigated the globe, passing over or across both the North Pole and the South Pole in the process. Unfortunately for them, these statements are false. There have been several trips around the earth that passed over both Poles, some by air and some by land. Fig. II.5 shows a few of these.
Here are a few examples. The precise routes that were followed can be found here, with their description.
“Between November 14-17, 1965, Capt. Fred 