15. Planes flying around a spherical Earth would need to be constantly dipping their nose to stop flying into space


“If the Earth were truly a sphere 25,000 miles in circumference, airplane pilots would have to constantly correct their altitudes downwards so as to not fly straight off into “outer space;” a pilot wishing to simply maintain their altitude at a typical cruising speed of 500 mph, would have to constantly dip their nose downwards and descend 2,777 feet (over half a mile) every minute! Otherwise, without compensation, in one hour’s time the pilot would find themselves 31.5 miles higher than expected.”



False fact, incorrect conclusion

A plane tends to stay at a given altitude because the upward force (or lift) exerted on its wings is equal to the downward force exerted by gravity.  To pull further away from the earth (the centre) the plane would need to increase the upward force.  Obviously this means that if it does not increase the upward force the plane will remain at the same distance away from the earth.

In practice, because of atmospheric variances pilots/autopilots make constant adjustments to keep at the same altitude … or more accurately at the same pressure altitude which will vary against actual altitude.  Pilots/autopilots are not taking the curvature of the earth into account they are simply adjusting according to their altimeter readings.

Perhaps less obvious is why the plane stays oriented horizontal to the surface of the earth as it travels. 

A clue to this lies with the fact that planes are carefully balanced so that their centre of gravity is located near the wings.  Just like a balanced weighing scale or see-saw this causes the plane to be oriented horizontally.  Since gravity is always pulling towards the centre of the Earth, “horizontal” is by definition perpendicular to this.  I.e. A plane staying horizontal will mean that it will always be oriented parallel to the ground below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitudinal_static_stability

However, even the implication of this “proof” that planes do not make orienting adjustments in flight is just not true.  They do constantly make adjustments, just for different reasons than those supposed by Dubay.

Planes are constantly making adjustments in all directions to cope with atmospheric variations.  In the example given in the following link, autopilot makes adjustments between 4 and 13 times per second.

https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/497/how-often-does-an-autopilot-update-control-surfaces-positions

On planes without autopilot, it is the pilot that will be making these adjustments by looking at his instruments such as attitude indicator (i.e. the horizon monitor).


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