I suspect that is because during times of war, there is less time for pondering scientific theories of... ahem... dubious quality. The only research going on is highly practical stuff. One would think that if the earth were ACTUALLY flat, flat earth theories would receive a boon during wartime, considering how important maps are for successful military campaigns.
Who gets to say which scientific inquiries are dubious? Depends on who is financing what kind of research, for what reason and to what ends; the funding has to come from somewhere. If Oreo poured money into 'scientifically' proving Oreos were healthy, would that be dubious? I'm not going to argue that. It is impossible to tell if something is dubious without thoroughly investigating it in any case. Most wars in the [previous resurgences of FE movement] have been very localized, in small geographic pockets. Nowadays, with technology such as Aircraft Carriers, Fighter Jets, ICBM, etc, yes that makes sense to know the shape of the world a little better. Though without testing them on 'global' distances, you can't be sure. I'm not bringing
VFR/IFR rules into this simple topic though, we already have some of those here discussing
flight paths and nautical lines/ocean transport. I like to keep my options open for now until I understand this thing better.
As for practicality. You might have heard of a little
Official NASA 1988 publication 1207,
Derivation and Definition of a Linear Aircraft manual, which contains the phrases:
"The lack of documentation and, occasionally, understanding of the derivation of linear models is a hindrance to communication, training, and application. This report details the development of the linear model of a rigid aircraft of constant mass,
flying over a flat, nonrotating earth. [...] By defining the initial conditions (of the nominal trajectory) for straight and level flight and setting the asymmetric aerodynamic and inertia terms to zero, one can easily obtain the more traditional linear models from the linear model derived in this report."
- Introduction, p6."This report derives and defines a set of linearized system matrices for a rigid aircraft of constant mass, flying in a stationary atmosphere over a flat, nonrotating earth. Both generalized and standard linear system equations are derived from nonlinear six-degree-of-freedom equations of motion and a large collection of nonlinear observation (measurement) equations. This derivation of a linear model is general and makes no assumptions on either the reference (nominal) trajectory about which the model is linearized or the symmetry of the vehicle mass and aerodynamic properties."
- Concluding remarks, p35.Well, I guess investigating flat earth geometry isn't practical!
Care to link one or two? I've seen flat earthers make this claim before. Every time I actually measure, the claim turns out to be false. For example, the dogcam video. Speaking of measuring, did you bother calculating how much curvature you would expect to see if the earth was round, based on the given altitude and camera?
I was just offering an answer to the question. Youtube is so inundated with GoPro fish eye lense cameras now it's hard. I
did look to try to find a few as an example, but the first 25 results I got were all fish eye lens. Literally.
The first 25. I gave up. Feel free to search "High altitude balloon" and see for yourself. In any case, Field of View has to be taken into consideration, even if it appears 'flat'. Just because it looks flat doesn't mean it is. Though the overwhelming amount of fish eye lenses is somewhat odd.
Like I said, I'm not spoon feeding. I just offered what I offered, no more, no less. Though Kerbal space program is a nice tool to demonstrate how much curvature there should be.
8 inches to the mile squared is what wikipedia says for a spherical Earth. Most (decent human beings) show the altitude in their videos, or even mention it in the title. Not too hard to figure out the expected curve if you have (an accurate bearing on) the altitude. Though, to be fair, as I said, I don't know to what extent and Field of View mechanics should be included to interpret such an equation. I'm still learning about perspective.
I'm not one to say "this is how it is". I will kindly point the right way to find for yourself (though I may be snide), but I ain't gonna say "here's what you should think about it". Unless I happen to think it's funny at the moment.
Also,
Watch the earth smile here @ 2:57! This is what I mean by 'fish eye lens cameras' for those who don't know. Understand if I sound frustrated this is why. Of course I could use a non-fish eye lens myself, though I'm beginning to think maybe you can't get a permit for that anymore!
EDIT: I think I found a non-fish eye lens clip here. It's a 2+ hour sunrise video, low quality camera, but I'm seeing what could be measurable curvature. This is a first for me! I learned something today, maybe.
Check here. He claims it may have reaches at least ~117,000 (feet I assume). He also mentions that this launch had a 'top view' camera, which he is currently uploading (a 30 gb file). I'm not sure if it's non-fish eye, it doesn't seem to ever go low or high enough angle to tell. 2:28:57 there appears to be curvature. Shortly after, you see the 'mound' of darkness on the horizon, where the 'night time' is retreating. Also, note that your field of view is a circle. So, it is all too easy to write off the field of view as the 'curvature'.