Nonstop flight route between Bury St. Edmunds, England, United Kingdom and Fairford, England, United Kingdom:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Honington USAAF Station 375 (BEQ), Bury St. Edmunds, England, United Kingdom and RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom would travel a Great Circle distance of 118 miles (or 190 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 relatively short distance between RAF Honington USAAF Station 375 and RAF Fairford, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

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.
• In 1956, RAF Honington also became one of the main V bomber bases maintaining three Vickers Valiant squadrons, Nos, 7, 90, and 199.
• 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.
• 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.
• IX Squadron flew the first RAF bombing raid of the Second World War on 4 September 1939 flying a mission against the Kriegsmarine in the Baltic resulting in the loss of two Wellingtons.
• 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.

Facts about RAF Fairford (FFD):

• Due to the deteriorating airfield facilities and its unique NATO heavy bomber mission, RAF Fairford underwent a $100 million upgrade of its runway and fuel systems in the largest NATO funded airfield construction project within a NATO country since the end of the Cold War.
• The furthest airport from RAF Fairford (FFD) is Dunedin International Airport (DUD), which is located 11,898 miles (19,148 kilometers) away in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.
• The runway was completed in 1953, and served as a forward airbase for the first Convair B-36 Peacemaker aircraft from Carswell Air Force Base, Texas.
• On 14 January 2004, the 420th Air Base Group was established at RAF Fairford to improve the control of its geographically separated units that had been aligned beneath the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall.
• RAF Fairford was constructed in 1944 to serve as an airfield for British and American troop carriers and gliders for the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II.
• On 15 September 2009, it was announced that the USAF will withdraw all their uniformed staff from the station by September 2010, after which it will be run on a "care and maintenance" basis.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.