Nonstop flight route between Birmingham, England, United Kingdom and Georgetown, Ascension Island, Saint Helena:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Birmingham Airport (BHX), Birmingham, England, United Kingdom and RAF Ascension (ASI), Georgetown, Ascension Island, Saint Helena would travel a Great Circle distance of 4,241 miles (or 6,825 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 Birmingham Airport and RAF Ascension, 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 Birmingham Airport and RAF Ascension. 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 Birmingham Airport (BHX):

• Birmingham Airport handled 9,120,201 passengers last year.
• The closest airport to Birmingham Airport (BHX) is Coventry Airport (CVT), which is located only 13 miles (20 kilometers) ESE of BHX.
• On 23 February 2011, it was reported that Birmingham Airport had announced the HS2 extension could be a solution to runway capacity problems in London, citing that will be quicker to get to London from Birmingham than from London Stansted once completed and claimed that the airport had capacity for nine million more passengers.
• Birmingham Airport is 5.5 NM east-south-east of Birmingham city centre, in the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull.
• Birmingham Airport (BHX) currently has only 1 runway.
• It's also been estimated that if these plans were to go ahead, the airport could handle around 70,000,000 passengers annually, and around 500,000 aircraft movements.
• In January 2011, the airport merged its two terminals into a Single Terminal Building.
• As part of the proposed High Speed Two rail link, a new railway station called Birmingham Interchange would be built to serve both the airport and the National Exhibition Centre.
• Because of Birmingham Airport's relatively low elevation of 341 feet, planes can take off or land at Birmingham 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 Birmingham Airport (BHX) is Dunedin International Airport (DUD), which is located 11,858 miles (19,084 kilometers) away in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.

Facts about RAF Ascension (ASI):

• The closest airport to RAF Ascension (ASI) is Sasstown Airport (SAZ), which is located 965 miles (1,553 kilometers) NNE of ASI.
• Wideawake Airfield was a US installation built in 1943 by arrangement with the British government.
• The RAF presence on Ascension is backed up by United States Air Force personnel, who contribute a similar number of service personnel to ensure the effective running of the station, under the command of Captain Eduard Rodriguez, who is responsible to the RAF Station Commander.
• The furthest airport from RAF Ascension (ASI) is Ujae Airport (UJE), which is nearly antipodal to RAF Ascension (meaning RAF Ascension is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Ujae Airport), and is located 12,370 miles (19,907 kilometers) away in Ujae Atoll, Marshall Islands.
• In addition to being known as "RAF Ascension", another name for ASI is "Wideawake Airbase/Field".