Nonstop flight route between Bury St. Edmunds, England, United Kingdom and Invercargill, New Zealand:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Honington USAAF Station 375 (BEQ), Bury St. Edmunds, England, United Kingdom and Invercargill Airport (IVC), Invercargill, New Zealand would travel a Great Circle distance of 11,744 miles (or 18,900 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 Invercargill 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 Honington USAAF Station 375 and Invercargill 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 Honington USAAF Station 375 (BEQ):

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• With the departure of the USAAF in February 1946, Honington airfield was returned to the RAF.
• In June 1942, the airfield was transferred to the USAAF and was upgraded to a Class A Bomber base.
• Besides the air depot, Honington also housed an operational fighter unit when the 364th Fighter Group took up residence at Honington in February 1944, arriving from Santa Maria AAF, California.
• In 1941, a Junkers Ju 88 was shot down by ground fire from Honington.

Facts about Invercargill Airport (IVC):

• Because of Invercargill Airport's relatively low elevation of 5 feet, planes can take off or land at Invercargill 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 furthest airport from Invercargill Airport (IVC) is A Coruña Airport (LCG), which is nearly antipodal to Invercargill Airport (meaning Invercargill Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from A Coruña Airport), and is located 12,168 miles (19,582 kilometers) away in A Coruña, Spain.
• A fully covered baggage carousel was commissioned in 2001.
• Regular types using the airport now are, ATR 72, and Dash 8 Q-300.
• Invercargill Airport (IVC) has 4 runways.
• The closest airport to Invercargill Airport (IVC) is Ryan's Creek Aerodrome (SZS), which is located 35 miles (57 kilometers) SSW of IVC.
• Although only ever a backup airport during World War II, military operations have remained rare due to Christchurch being chosen as the main Operation Deep Freeze Base in 1949 and what was then Dunedin's Taieri Aerodrome acting as a departure point for shorter range aircraft heading south.
• Invercargill Airport handled 27,092 passengers last year.
• Since July 2012, Air New Zealand has used Invercargill as a technical stop when conditions in Queenstown restrict aircraft from taking off with sufficient fuel to fly direct to Australia due to weather or operational reasons.
• The airport's first scheduled service was in 1944 by Union Airways' Lockheed 10 Electra flying from Dunedin.