Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Helsinki / Malmi, Finland:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Helsinki-Malmi Airport (HEM), Helsinki / Malmi, Finland would travel a Great Circle distance of 1,183 miles (or 1,903 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 Helsinki-Malmi 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.
• 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.
• In 1950, as a result of the beginning of the Cold War, the airfield was transferred to the U.S.
• Fairford was chosen in 1969 as the British test centre for the Concorde aircraft, which continued until 1977.
• 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.
• Due to RAF Fairford's location and infrastructure, the airfield is designated as a forward operating location for the US Air Force.
• 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 Helsinki-Malmi Airport (HEM):

• In addition to being known as "Helsinki-Malmi Airport", another name for HEM is "Helsinki-Malmin lentoasemaHelsingfors-Malm flygplats".
• On 25 March 2014, the Finnish government made a framework decision in principle to close down Malmi Airport and hand it over to residential use by the early 2020s.
• The furthest airport from Helsinki-Malmi Airport (HEM) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 10,992 miles (17,691 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• Helsinki-Malmi Airport handled 50 passengers last year.
• Because of Helsinki-Malmi Airport's relatively low elevation of 57 feet, planes can take off or land at Helsinki-Malmi 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 closest airport to Helsinki-Malmi Airport (HEM) is Helsinki Airport (HEL), which is located only 5 miles (8 kilometers) NNW of HEM.
• Helsinki-Malmi Airport (HEM) has 2 runways.
• For a long time, the City of Helsinki has had plans to close the airport in order to use the area for construction of new residential zones, but this decision had been debated and deferred for many years.
• A new airfield of international standards was first opened to traffic in 1952 in Seutula, in time for the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
• Helsinki-Malmi Airport was among the first in the world to be designed from the beginning as an international airport.