Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Brussels, Belgium:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Brussels Airport (BRU), Brussels, Belgium would travel a Great Circle distance of 276 miles (or 445 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 Fairford and Brussels Airport, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about RAF Fairford (FFD):

• 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 12 May 2005, USAFE activated the 501st Combat Support Wing, with headquarters at RAF Alconbury, to provide support to its GSUs in the United Kingdom.
• 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.
• Fairford was chosen in 1969 as the British test centre for the Concorde aircraft, which continued until 1977.
• The 422nd ABG at RAF Croughton and the 420th Air Base Squadron are responsible for the day-to-day operations of RAF Fairford, ensuring that it has adequate resources.
• 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.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.
• Operations staff and maintenance personnel were permanently assigned, but aircraft, aircrews and crew chiefs were temporarily assigned to the 11th Strategic Group for the European Tanker Task Force on rotation.

Facts about Brussels Airport (BRU):

• Brussels Airport handled 19,133,222 passengers last year.
• The furthest airport from Brussels Airport (BRU) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,945 miles (19,223 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• Pier B is the oldest pier that is still in use at Brussels Airport and is only used for flights outside the Schengen Area.
• The airport also features places of worship, as well as a place for mediation for humanists.
• Brussels Airport (BRU) has 3 runways.
• Sabena's demise meant a sharp fall in passenger traffic, a blow the airport only slowly recovered from.
• In addition to being known as "Brussels Airport", another name for BRU is "Luchthaven Brussel-Nationaal (Dutch)Aéroport de Bruxelles-National (French)".
• The origins of Brussels Airport at Zaventem date back to 1940, when the German occupying force laid claim to 600 ha of agricultural fields reserved as back-up airfield "Steenokkerzeel".
• On 18 February 2013, in the 2013 Belgium diamond heist, eight men armed with automatic weapons and dressed in police uniforms seized 120 small parcels containing an estimated US$50 million worth of diamonds off of a Helvetic Airways Fokker 100 passenger plane loaded with passengers preparing for departure to Zurich, Switzerland.
• The closest airport to Brussels Airport (BRU) is Antwerp International Airport (ANR), which is located only 20 miles (32 kilometers) N of BRU.
• Because of Brussels Airport's relatively low elevation of 184 feet, planes can take off or land at Brussels 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.
• Brussels Airport has two departure halls.