I clarified that mapping a flat earth would be much easier because you are mapping a relatively two-dimensional object, like the floor plan of a building. As you say, maps have been around for hundreds of years. It would seem that someone would have gotten it right by now, if indeed they were mapping a two dimensional object.
As for navigation, for hundreds of years navigators have taken into account the distortions in their maps. This is from a Britannica.com article about navigation charts: "In 1599 the English mathematician Edward Wright supplied a rational explanation of Mercator’s projection and provided tables by which the distorted distances could be corrected."
I could not find a single database for the entire earth, but I found this site that will tell you driving distances on Australia, which I picked because it is so distorted on every flat earth map I have seen:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distanceresult.html?p1=240&p2=196The results for driving from Sydney to Perth come out at 3934 km which follows roads and wisely avoids traversing water
I also found this calculator for calculating distances which is based on a round earth:
https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distance.htmlIt calculated and displayed a slightly curved path from Sydney to Perth that measures 3298 km which makes sense given no roads are involved.
Quantas has a Flight Aware tracking system for flight # 581 from Sydney to Perth showing a flight distance of 3281 km (2039 miles) with expected average flight speed of 409 mph:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/QFA581You will see on that page that the last 14 flights all arrived within 5 hours of departure except one which was 5 hours and 2 minutes.
These are all calculations based on a round earth and they are incredibly accurate. I challenge you to show me a map based on a flat earth that comes even remotely close to these calculations. A globe does allow these calculations to work, but so do map projections based on a round earth that are biased to show the continents in their correct relative sizes such as the Dymaxion map by Buckminster Fuller or the Authagraph projection (note that the best way to do this is to cut the earth up into triangles which can be flattened out and then also can be folded back up to make a roughly spherical shaped globe).
The reason these calculations do not work based on a flat earth model is simple, the earth is not flat. That also explains why the flight path in the link above curves south over the water. A straight line on a two dimensional map does not take into account the curvature of the earth. I am pretty sure the airlines would not fly hundreds of miles out of their way just to support a conspiracy to keep us all in the dark about the shape of the earth.
And finally, thank you for taking the time this time to respond in slightly more depth to my points. I do appreciate it and have truly enjoyed exploring this flat earth theory as it has taught me much. However, I am done debating this for now, so this will be my last post. I wish you all the best.