I flew to London and walked home. For an hour I hiked the aisles of a 747, trekking 640 miles over the Atlantic Ocean, from 30° to 43° west longitude, at a latitude of 49° north, 31,000 feet above the porpoises. Why? Because getting exercise a mile higher than Everest is an excellent way to fight jet lag.

When I signed up for a walking tour of the English outback, I figured, why not keep on keepin’ on and aerobicize in the air? I asked the people at Virgin Atlantic Airline what they thought about my walking home from London. They contemplated upgrading security.

Eventually they decided my walk was a good idea, which about coincided with the time I concluded it wasn’t. They suggested I promenade wearing a Virgin t-shirt.

No sooner do I buckle myself into seat 6A than Ruth Davies, in-flight supervisor, comes to visit. She is the first of four Virgin staffers who tell me that walking, deep-knee bends or any activity – on westbound flights – is a superb antidote for airborne fatigue and post-flight exhaustion. (Eastbound, most experts advise sleeping as much as possible.)

“We will tell the passengers that you are going to be walking,” says Ruth. “Please wait until after meal service? The pilot wants to meet you.”

After dinner, I slip into the john and make like Superman. The Virgin in the mirror wonders if she should flush her sense of humor into the blue. When I emerge, Ruth introduces me to the pilot, Steve Hallett, who asks if I’m walking for charity. I want him to be charitable and let me change my mind.

On a navigational chart, Captain Steve points to my starting location, exactly at the spot where the dotted black line crosses the red dashes, intersected by a blue band, not far from a green number 2. And a whole mess of ocean, probably filled with sharks and paparazzi waiting to eat me alive or embarrass me to death. He smiles. I smile. I’ve run out of delaying tactics. At 9:29 p.m., body time, hi ho, it’s off to walk I go.

I walk up the left aisle, past the folks waiting for toilets, down the right aisle, through the main cabin and upper class. Repeat. Switch directions. Two minutes elapse. How long can I keep this up?

The plane is night-dark. Lights are off. The movie is on. Striding by, feigning sanity, is a woman wearing white sneaks, black slacks and an extra-large white t-shirt that screams VIRGIN in red letters loud enough to interfere with the sound track. Most of the 235 awake passengers are intent on Sleepless in Seattle.

As I cross their view, they squint with irritation. A few people acknowledge me. An Englishman is visiting a nephew in either Greenwich or Greenwich Village, he’s not sure. All those American places sound alike. He thinks I’m cute. He wears thick glasses.

A woman who joins me for three circuits works is studying to be an air-traffic controller. She tells a gruesome tale about a friend who sat motionless during a 12-hour flight, developed a blood clot in her hip and takes anti-coagulants. I ditch her.

The walk is boring. Nor am I a candidate for Guinness, because flight attendants who serve pretzels and Cokes for 6 3/4 hours call their job “walking the Atlantic.” They get bunions, not clots.

After I walk an hour, a junket the equivalent of Capitol Hill to Little Rock, Captain Steve produces a souvenir flight plan with my name inscribed as pilot. I feel like a kid getting a lollipop for behaving in the doctor’s office.

I also feel energized, while my plane-mates look fuzzy and crabby. The theory about westbound exercise must be legit, because apparently I’m the only person feeling either physically or psychologically alive.

Just to prove that you never outgrow your need for laughter, a stunning man, watching my wandering, flags me down. In a thick American accent, he asks if my VIRGIN t-shirt is a vanity t-shirt. My sons flash before my eyes. I give him the only answer he would accept. “Yes.”