Nonstop flight route between Mangere, New Zealand and Wallops Island, Virginia, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Auckland Airport (AKL), Mangere, New Zealand and Wallops Flight Facility Airport (WAL), Wallops Island, Virginia, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 8,682 miles (or 13,971 kilometers).

A Great Circle is the shortest distance between 2 points on a sphere. Because most world maps are flat (but the Earth is round), the route of the shortest distance between 2 points on the Earth will often appear curved when viewed on a flat map, especially for long distances. If you were to simply draw a straight line on a flat map and measure a very long distance, it would likely be much further than if you were to lay a string between those two points on a globe. Because of the large distance between Auckland Airport and Wallops Flight Facility Airport, the route shown on this map most likely appears curved because of this reason.

Try it at home! Get a globe and tightly lay a string between Auckland Airport and Wallops Flight Facility Airport. You'll see that it will travel the same route of the red line on this map!

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Auckland Airport (AKL):

• Auckland Airport handled 14,829,393 passengers last year.
• AIAL enjoys diverse revenue streams, and operates a 'dual-till' approach, whereby its finances are split into aeronautical and non-aeronautical balance sheets.
• A new international terminal, named after Jean Batten, was built in 1977.
• The closest airport to Auckland Airport (AKL) is Ardmore Airport (AMZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) E of AKL.
• Auckland Airport (AKL) has 2 runways.
• The furthest airport from Auckland Airport (AKL) is Málaga Airport (AGP), which is nearly antipodal to Auckland Airport (meaning Auckland Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Málaga Airport), and is located 12,391 miles (19,942 kilometers) away in Málaga, Spain.
• Because of Auckland Airport's relatively low elevation of 23 feet, planes can take off or land at Auckland Airport at a lower air speed than at airports located at a higher elevation. This is because the air density is higher closer to sea level than it would otherwise be at higher elevations.
• Auckland Airport decided that rather than building a new sub-top level to stream arriving passengers, they would build a new departures floor for passengers to "drop down" into the existing gate lounges on the first floor, which would be closed off from a central arrivals corridor by glass.

Facts about Wallops Flight Facility Airport (WAL):

• The Wallops Research Range includes ground-based and mobile systems, and a range control center.
• The Wallops Visitor Center has a variety of hands-on exhibits and hosts weekly educational activities and programs to enable children to explore and learn about the technologies designed and used by NASA researchers and scientists.
• On September 6, 2013, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer was launched from Wallops, atop a Minotaur V rocket.
• Because of Wallops Flight Facility Airport's relatively low elevation of 0 feet, planes can take off or land at Wallops Flight Facility Airport at a lower air speed than at airports located at a higher elevation. This is because the air density is higher closer to sea level than it would otherwise be at higher elevations.
• Wallops Flight Facility, located on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, is operated by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, primarily as a rocket launch site to support science and exploration missions for N.A.S.A.
• The Wallops mobile range instrumentation includes telemetry, radar, command and power systems.
• In 1945, NASA's predecessor agency, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, established a rocket launch site on Wallops Island under the direction of the Langley Research Center.
• The closest airport to Wallops Flight Facility Airport (WAL) is Accomack County Airport (MFV), which is located 26 miles (42 kilometers) SW of WAL.
• There have been over 16,000 launches from the rocket testing range at Wallops since its founding in 1945 in the quest for information on the flight characteristics of airplanes, launch vehicles, and spacecraft, and to increase the knowledge of the Earth's upper atmosphere and the environment of outer space.
• The furthest airport from Wallops Flight Facility Airport (WAL) is Margaret River Airport (MGV), which is located 11,785 miles (18,965 kilometers) away in Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia.
• AFSS is a project to develop an autonomous on-board system that could augment or replace traditional ground-commanded Range Safety flight termination systems.