Long time lurker, first time poster.
I don't think I have seen a post on this topic specifically, but was curious to see what thoughts were on this.
It seems to me that if the earth is flat, and a disk, with the north pole in the center, that road that runs "straight" east-west (has the same latitude on each end), then there should be a detectable curve on the road. Since the north pole is at the center of the disk, the further north you go, the more pronounced the curvature should be. Seems like this would be a great way for someone to confirm or disprove the FE map.
Here are my assumptions:
Earth Radius: 12,500 miles
Radius at a given latitude: (-12,500 * (latitude - 90))
Miles per degree of latitude: 69.4 (12,500 / 180)
Miles per minute of latitude: 1.157 (12,500 / (180 * 60))
Feet per second of latitude: 101.9 (12,500 * 5280 / (180 * 60 * 60))
So I took to Google Maps and started looking for some East-West roads with some long straight sections. I found this 14.2 mile stretch in North Dakota:
https://goo.gl/maps/SM817Cs9mF22Checking the center of the westbound lane at both ends resulted in latitudes of 48º 20' 32.75" N on the west end, and 48º 20' 32.41" on the East end. A small, but significant difference. When worked out using the seconds per minute above, the western end is 34.6 feet further north than the eastern end.
On a flat earth, the radius at latitude 48º 20' 32.53" (between the two endpoints) is 2892.9 miles. Using the Pythagorean theorem, I calculated how much the earth should curve to the right (if looking west):
D = Distance (miles)
Curve (feet) = 5280 * ( SQRT(2892.9
2 + D
2) - 2892.9)
Distance 1 mile => Curve Offset = 0.9 feet
Distance 2 miles => Curve Offset = 3.7 feet
Distance 3 miles => Curve Offset = 8.2 feet
Distance 4 miles => Curve Offset = 14.6 feet
Distance 5 miles => Curve Offset = 22.8 feet
If you could somehow see the entire 14.2 miles of the stretch, the western end of the road should be 184 feet to the right of due west. Was thinking that you could use GPS to validate that the latitude of the road doesn't change over its length. (I don't know that I have seen anyone on here dispute that GPS works, just arguments about how it works)
Anyway, it is just a thought exercise right now, unfortunately I don't have and good hills with straight, east-west roads coming down from them around here, or a tower or something tall in line with an East-West road to use. I was wondering if anyone else has done this. Seems like a pretty definitive way to prove/disprove the FE map.