Nonstop flight route between Alconbury, England, United Kingdom and Santa Barbara, California, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF AlconburyUSAAF Station 102 (AYH), Alconbury, England, United Kingdom and Santa Barbara Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, California, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 5,426 miles (or 8,733 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 RAF AlconburyUSAAF Station 102 and Santa Barbara 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 RAF AlconburyUSAAF Station 102 and Santa Barbara 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 RAF AlconburyUSAAF Station 102 (AYH):

• A total of 67 bombers had been lost in RAF Bomber Command operations flown from Alconbury, eight were Blenheims and 59 Wellingtons.
• The closest airport to RAF AlconburyUSAAF Station 102 (AYH) is Cambridge International Airport (CBG), which is located 20 miles (32 kilometers) ESE of AYH.
• During this period, RAF Alconbury consisted of a few wooden huts but plans were made to provide both refuelling and rearmament facilities.
• The furthest airport from RAF AlconburyUSAAF Station 102 (AYH) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,821 miles (19,024 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• The host unit at RAF Alconbury is the 423rd Air Base Group which supplies host unit services for Alconbury as well as RAF Molesworth.
• The 501 CSW ensures United Kingdom-based air base groups are resourced, sustained, trained and equipped to exacting command standards in order to provide mission support that enables United States and NATO war fighters to conduct full spectrum flying operations during expeditionary deployments, theatre munitions movements, global command and control communications to forward deployed locations, support for theatre intelligence operations and joint/combined training.

Facts about Santa Barbara Airport (SBA):

• The furthest airport from Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) is Pierrefonds Airport (ZSE), which is located 11,487 miles (18,486 kilometers) away in Saint-Pierre, Réunion.
• As airplane manufacturing grew in the late 1930s that airstrip developed into an airfield.
• Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) has 3 runways.
• The closest airport to Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) is Santa Ynez Airport (SQA), which is located only 18 miles (29 kilometers) NW of SBA.
• In the 1980s Apollo Airways, a commuter airline based in Santa Barbara that changed its name to Pacific Coast Airlines, flew Handley Page HP.137 Jetstreams from the airport.
• Because of Santa Barbara Airport's relatively low elevation of 10 feet, planes can take off or land at Santa Barbara 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.
• The largest passenger jet currently serving Santa Barbara is the Airbus A319 operated by Frontier Airlines nonstop to Denver.
• Santa Barbara Municipal Airport is a public airport 7 miles west of downtown Santa Barbara, California, United States.
• In the 1951 war film Flying Leathernecks, John Wayne's character was stationed in Goleta.