Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Boa Vista, Cape Verde:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Aristides Pereira International Airport (BVC), Boa Vista, Cape Verde would travel a Great Circle distance of 2,716 miles (or 4,371 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 Fairford and Aristides Pereira International 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 Fairford and Aristides Pereira International 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 Fairford (FFD):

• 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.
• 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.
• Royal Air Force Fairford or more simply RAF Fairford is a Royal Air Force station in Gloucestershire, England which is currently a standby airfield and therefore not in everyday use.
• 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.
• In the early years of the Cold War the British and American governments reached an agreement under which elements of the USAF Strategic Air Command would be based in the UK.
• 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.

Facts about Aristides Pereira International Airport (BVC):

• Because of Aristides Pereira International Airport's relatively low elevation of 69 feet, planes can take off or land at Aristides Pereira International 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.
• Aristides Pereira International Airport (BVC) currently has only 1 runway.
• In addition to being known as "Aristides Pereira International Airport", another name for BVC is "Aeroporto Internacional Aristides Pereira".
• Aristides Pereira International Airport is an airport in Cape Verde located on the island of Boa Vista, about 5 km southeast of the island capital Sal Rei.
• The furthest airport from Aristides Pereira International Airport (BVC) is Bellona/Anua Airport (BNY), which is nearly antipodal to Aristides Pereira International Airport (meaning Aristides Pereira International Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Bellona/Anua Airport), and is located 12,057 miles (19,404 kilometers) away in Anua, Bellona Island, Solomon Islands.
• The airport was originally named Rabil Airport, but on 19 November 2011 it was renamed as a tribute to the first president of Cape Verde, Aristides Pereira.
• The closest airport to Aristides Pereira International Airport (BVC) is Amílcar Cabral International Airport (SID), which is located 42 miles (68 kilometers) N of BVC.