A National Geographic video (titled, “What is the Coriolis effect?”) comprising part of an educational article concerning the (alleged) Coriolis effect,¹ was identified by one of our readers—Mr. Rouven Boganski in Germany—as unwittingly but otherwise implicitly confirming PLANE GEODESY’s pronouncement that the earth is stationary.²

The relevant narration (minute 0:42 to minute 1:49) in the video is quoted as follows:

[…] Here’s the basic idea. Earth is constantly spinning around it’s axis from west to east. But because earth is a sphere and wider in the middle, points on the equator are actually spinning faster around the axis than points near the poles. So, imagine you were standing in Texas and had a magic paper airplane that could travel hundreds of miles. If you threw your airplane directly northward, you might think it would land straight north, maybe somewhere in Nebraska. But Texas is actually spinning around earth’s axis faster than Nebraska is because it’s closer to the equator. That means that the paper airplane is spinning faster as well, and when you throw it, that spinning momentum is conserved. So, if you threw your paper airplane in a straight line toward the north, it would land somewhere to the right of Nebraska, maybe in Delaware. So, from your point of view in Texas, the plane would have taken a curved path to the right. [...]

PLANE GEODESY agrees with the conservation of angular momentum aspect of the above narration, but of course, disagrees that the earth is rotating about an (alleged) axis. In other words, we agree that the plane would in fact end up significantly east of Nebraska IF the earth were indeed spinning and concomitant course corrections were not made. But a review of the tracking history of commercial flights from Texas to Nebraska reveal that such course corrections are not made, being entirely unnecessary because the earth is not spinning.

The reader is asked to consider the following example of such a flight from Texas to Nebraska:³

United Airlines / Mesa Airlines Flight UA6063 / ASH6063 is a south → north flight from Houston (STD 11:59 AM CDT) to Omaha (STA 2:16 PM AM CDT)⁴ — a de facto repeatable experiment. The approximately 2 hour flight⁵ from Houston, Texas, specifically, (IAH) George Bush Intercontinental / Houston Airport, located at coordinates N29°59.07' / W95°20.49',⁶ to Omaha, Nebraska specifically, (OMA) Eppley Airfield Airport, located at coordinates N41°18.19' / W95°53.64',⁷ is essentially a south → north flight more or less between the (W) 95^th and 96^th meridians, the average outbound heading being approximately 358° (N).

Now the (alleged) west → east tangential velocity of the earth at Houston (IAH) at latitude N29°59.07' (i.e., 29.9845°N) is (to the nearest tenth of a kilometer per hour) \(1,444.9 \textrm{ km hr}^{-1}\), whereas the (alleged) west → east tangential velocity of the earth at Omaha (OMA) at latitude N41°18.19' (i.e., 41.303167°N) is (again, to the nearest tenth of a kilometer per hour) \(1,252.7 \textrm{ km hr}^{-1}\), a difference of \(192.1 \textrm{ km hr}^{-1}\).⁸ Given that the average flight time is 1 hour 49 minutes, then Flight UA6063 / ASH6063 would be approximately \(349 \textrm{ km} \) east of Omaha upon arrival, not as far east as Delaware as suggested in the National Geographic video, but about as far east as eastern Iowa (but west of Iowa City). But of course, that does happen — not because Flight UA6063 / ASH6063 compensates by adding a westerly component to its almost due north flight path (check with the airline yourself) — but for the simple reason that the earth does not rotate.

Remember reader, this is National Geographic saying what should happen (obviously, in the absence of corrective action) and PLANE GEODESY would agree that this should happen IF the earth were rotating. But since this does not happen (and there is zero evidence to suggest any compensatory deviation from the projected flight path in this respect), their video actually implies that the earth is stationary.

It’s time for the public to wake up on this matter.

— FINIS —