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Saturday, August 31, 2019

Quito, Ecuador is on the equator and might be a new reference point for me.

Entry August 31, 2019
.........It's been awhile since I've considered the trip around Antarctica or even 60 deg south latitude or even Chippy's 55 deg south latitude-- to prove a distance greater or less than the equatorial distance of 25,000 miles. A greater distance than the equatorial circumference would be consistent with a flat earth and a lesser distance would be consistant with a globe.
..........I've been concerned more with the powering of the vehicle to be used either on water or in air and discovered that there's a lot of controversy surrounding the jet turbine engine used on both big ships and in planes-- and whether or not they use fuel. It turns out to be a real problem in terms of designing my distance test for flat vs. globe earth.
..........I bumped into a guy from Quito, Ecuador which led to my re-thinking how to more easily determine distance above and below the equator. I would not have to travel around the flat earth or globe-- a huge project-- but simply determine distance between two lines of longitude north of Quito and distance between the same two lines south of Quito. If Earth is a globe, the distance should be the same. If Earth is flat, the distance should be greater south of Quito. It occurred to me that I might contact the University of Quito and propose a study from there.
..........Thinking on this further, it now seems to me that the same should hold true for any latitude, not just the Quito latitude of zero. Theoretically, if my house has a backyard north of the house and a front yard south of the house, I should be able to detect a slightly longer distance between two lines of longitude in my front yard than my back yard. This would save me a trip to Quito. The problem becomes one of accurate measurement and determination of where lines of longitude are.
...........Why don't we see lines of longitude marked out on properties or even as tourist attractions? I watched a few Youtubes on how to determine lines of latitude using the north star, in the Northern Hemisphere but have not been able to go further than that yet.
............The advertised Flat Earth Cruise that hit the news awhile ago is not going around the circle of the flat earth but is a mere gathering on a cruise ship. It might be used to spark an interest in the journey around 55 deg south however. Chippy's idea on that was to avoid the problems 60 deg south might present, legally. I think I had thought of that first but didn't emphasize it as much as Chippy... although the Vendee race I looked at made this apparent.