Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Galway, Ireland:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Galway Airport (GWY), Galway, Ireland would travel a Great Circle distance of 321 miles (or 516 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 Galway 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):

• 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.
• RAF Fairford was the only TransOceanic Abort Landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle in the UK.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Due to the deteriorating airfield facilities and its unique NATO heavy bomber mission, RAF Fairford underwent a $100 million upgrade of its runway and fuel systems in the largest NATO funded airfield construction project within a NATO country since the end of the Cold War.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.

Facts about Galway Airport (GWY):

• In addition to being known as "Galway Airport", another name for GWY is "Aerphort na Gaillimhe".
• The closest airport to Galway Airport (GWY) is Connemara Airport (NNR), which is located 22 miles (36 kilometers) WSW of GWY.
• During World War I a landing ground was built for the RAF at nearby Oranmore.
• In June 2011 the Government announced that funding for Galway Airport will cease by December 2011.
• Galway Airport (GWY) currently has only 1 runway.
• The runway was extended to 1200 metres and completed on 2 March 1987.
• The furthest airport from Galway Airport (GWY) is Ryan's Creek Aerodrome (SZS), which is located 11,976 miles (19,273 kilometers) away in Stewart Island, New Zealand.
• In 1994 Aer Arann began the Dublin route supported by the state funded Public Service Obligation scheme.
• In February 2012, workers at the airport staged a sit-in in protest at the risk that their redundancy payments might not materialise after the airport's bankers had seized its working capital.
• In its hey-day, these were the busiest routes from Galway.
• By 2007 Galway was officially the fastest growing airport in Ireland, fast exceeding international airports with passenger growth at 63% per annum at that time.
• Because of Galway Airport's relatively low elevation of 81 feet, planes can take off or land at Galway 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.