3 hours ago, Murmur said:

In most flight sims, the virtual earth is not moving (i.e. a certain point on the ground has fixed 3d coordinates). It is the virtual sun that is rotating around the virtual earth

Not sure, but it seems like earth is moving in MSFS based sims(at least this is accounted for in MSFS bubble arround you), just found this: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526981.aspx  

 Some interesting variables like: STRUCT SURFACE RELATIVE VELOCITY, STRUCT WORLDVELOCITY, STRUCT WORLD ROTATION VELOCITY...

24 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

pixel colors are being set in a 2D coordinate system to provide the illusion of movement

I'm not sure... I belive you are using 4K display resolution?  Please don't let me bring quantum mechanics into discussion...  But ok, in the end, that's a great answer

Did you all never program a game in Basic?

Or play Mario Bros?

Pretty sure the plane is "stationary". The rest is dressing.

Yes.