Nonstop flight route between Bury St. Edmunds, England, United Kingdom and Fairbanks, Alaska, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Honington USAAF Station 375 (BEQ), Bury St. Edmunds, England, United Kingdom and Eielson Air Force Base (EIL), Fairbanks, Alaska, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 4,172 miles (or 6,715 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 Honington USAAF Station 375 and Eielson Air Force Base, 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 Honington USAAF Station 375 and Eielson Air Force Base. 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 Honington USAAF Station 375 (BEQ):

• Then, in May of that year, a Wellington returning from a night trip attempted to land at Honington with its wheels retracted.
• Royal Air Force Honington or more simply RAF Honington is a Royal Air Force station located 6 mi south of Thetford near Ixworth in Suffolk, England.
• Converted from P-38 Lightnings to P-51 Mustangs in the summer of 1944 and from then until the end of the war flew many long-range escort missions heavy bombers that attacked oil refineries, industries, and other strategic objectives at Berlin, Regensburg, Merseburg, Stuttgart, Brussels, and elsewhere.
• The furthest airport from RAF Honington USAAF Station 375 (BEQ) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,834 miles (19,044 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• The closest airport to RAF Honington USAAF Station 375 (BEQ) is RAF Lakenheath (LKZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) WNW of BEQ.
• In 1956, RAF Honington also became one of the main V bomber bases maintaining three Vickers Valiant squadrons, Nos, 7, 90, and 199.

Facts about Eielson Air Force Base (EIL):

• On 1 December 1947 Strategic Air Command B-29 Superfortress bombers arrived at 26-Mile Airfield with the deployment of the 97th Bombardment Wing, Very Heavy, from Smoky Hill AFB, Kansas.
• A year later, however, Eielson moved from under the shadow of Ladd Field when the Alaskan Air Command assumed organizational control.
• The closest airport to Eielson Air Force Base (EIL) is Ladd Army Airfield (FBK), which is located only 19 miles (31 kilometers) NW of EIL.
• In addition to being known as "Eielson Air Force Base", another name for EIL is "Eielson AFB".
• The furthest airport from Eielson Air Force Base (EIL) is Port Elizabeth International Airport (PLZ), which is located 10,295 miles (16,568 kilometers) away in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
• The Air Defense Command deployed interceptors to Eielson during the 1960s.
• The Cold War seen the use of Eielson's expansive reservation as a maneuver area for the U.S.
• On 7 June 1943, the Western Defense Command ordered construction of a new airfield near present-day Fort Wainwright, then an Army airfield named after Major Arthur Ladd.
• A new chapter for the base began 1 October 1981 when the 343d Composite Wing replaced the 5010th as Eielson's host unit.