Nonstop flight route between Big Spring, Texas, United States and Saarbrücken, Germany:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield (BGS), Big Spring, Texas, United States and Saarbrücken Airport (SCN), Saarbrücken, Germany would travel a Great Circle distance of 5,311 miles (or 8,548 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 Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield and Saarbrücken 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 Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield and Saarbrücken 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 Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield (BGS):

• Big Spring Army Airfield
• In its continuing effort to cut costs, ATC made some major changes in the undergraduate pilot training program.
• The airfield and flight line was converted to an uncontrolled/UNICOM-only general aviation airport renamed Big Spring McMahon-Wrinkle Airport, serving the City of Big Spring.
• The closest airport to Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield (BGS) is Midland Airpark (MDD), which is located 36 miles (58 kilometers) WSW of BGS.
• By the mid-1970s, the end of the Vietnam War, the associated financial costs of that conflict and related cuts in USAF force structure and future defense budgets meant a marked decrease in the need for Air Force pilots.
• The furthest airport from Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield (BGS) is Sir Gaëtan Duval Airport (RRG), which is located 11,166 miles (17,969 kilometers) away in Rodrigues Island, Mauritius.
• Webb Air Force Base, previously named Big Spring Air Force Base, was a United States Air Force facility of the Air Training Command that operated from 1951 to 1977 in west Texas within the current city limits of Big Spring.
• Instruction of the first class began in April 1952.
• In 1956, the Air Defense Command 331st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was transferred to Webb from Stewart Air Force Base in New York to defend the southern United States border on air intercept missions as part of the Central Air Defense Force.
• The base was declared surplus and was turned over to the War Assets Administration after being closed.
• At that time, nearly 6,000 students had graduated and the field's training aircraft had flown approximately 400,000 hours and more than 60 million miles.

Facts about Saarbrücken Airport (SCN):

• It wasn't until 1964 and several years of reconstruction work that the airport in Ensheim could finally open.
• The closest airport to Saarbrücken Airport (SCN) is Zweibrücken Airport (ZQW), which is located only 13 miles (21 kilometers) E of SCN.
• Saarbrücken Airport (SCN) has 2 runways.
• In June 2011, 46,189 passengers used Saarbrücken Airport and it handled 452,314 passengers in the same entire year.
• The airport is linked to motorways A1/A6 which connect to Saarbrücken itself, to the cities of Trier and Mannheim and to Luxembourg.
• The furthest airport from Saarbrücken Airport (SCN) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is nearly antipodal to Saarbrücken Airport (meaning Saarbrücken Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Chatham Islands), and is located 12,027 miles (19,355 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• In 2006/2007, Saarbrücken Airport suffered difficulties caused by the opening of a former military airport, Zweibrücken Airport, just 40 km away.
• In addition to being known as "Saarbrücken Airport", another name for SCN is "Flughafen Saarbrücken".