Flight Path

Use simple trigonometry to calculate the distance along the flight path from London to Sydney.
Exploring and noticing Working systematically Conjecturing and generalising Visualising and representing Reasoning, convincing and proving
Being curious Being resourceful Being resilient Being collaborative


 


You only need elementary trigonometry to do this question if you use the guidance given in the hints.

London is at longitude $0^o$ and latitude $51.5^o$ North and Sydney at longitude $151^o$ East and latitude $34^o$ South. Taking the earth to be a sphere with radius 6378 kilometres, calculate the distance between London and Sydney.

If the flight path is the shortest route at an altitude of 6 kilometres calculate the distance along the flight path.