Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Heide, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Heide-Büsum Airport (HEI), Heide, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany would travel a Great Circle distance of 476 miles (or 767 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 Heide-Büsum 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):

• KC-135 and KC-10 tankers deployed to Fairford supported Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya in 1986.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of 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.
• 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 Heide-Büsum Airport (HEI):

• In addition to being known as "Heide-Büsum Airport", another name for HEI is "Flugplatz Heide-Büsum".
• The closest airport to Heide-Büsum Airport (HEI) is Nordholz Naval Airbase (FCN), which is located 28 miles (46 kilometers) SSW of HEI.
• The furthest airport from Heide-Büsum Airport (HEI) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,683 miles (18,801 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• Because of Heide-Büsum Airport's relatively low elevation of 7 feet, planes can take off or land at Heide-Büsum 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.
• Heide-Büsum Airport (HEI) currently has only 1 runway.