Hi John, You should have concentrated on the bald head in front of you. If he was as bald as I am, you could have visualized parallels of latitude, meridians of longitude and great circle routes scribed on this sphere. The solution was right in front of you.
This spring I flew from London to Calgary, a 9 hour flight. According to local times we landed about 2 hours after we took off. Calgary and London at Latitude 51 degrees are below 56.25 degrees, the solution to your puzzle. The interesting thing is the great circle route took us to almost latitude 70 degrees. At that latitude we were gaining on time by over 50%. The views of the mountains, fiords, glaciers and icebergs of Greenland were spectacular. It is too bad time was flying by so quickly. The overnight flight to London also took us north of the arctic circle so we got to see the midnight sun. Needless to say we ignored the instructions to close the window blind so people could watch the movie! Even bald heads and wing gnomons would be more interesting than the typical airline movie. Roger Bailey
