Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and São José dos Campos, Brazil:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport (SJK), São José dos Campos, Brazil would travel a Great Circle distance of 5,822 miles (or 9,370 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 São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf 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 São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf 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):

• 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.
• RAF Fairford was the only TransOceanic Abort Landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle in the UK.
• 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 15 September 2009, it was announced that the USAF will withdraw all their uniformed staff from the station by September 2010, after which it will be run on a "care and maintenance" basis.
• 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.
• 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.

Facts about São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport (SJK):

• São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport handled 160,229 passengers last year.
• The furthest airport from São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport (SJK) is Minami-Daito Airport (MMD), which is nearly antipodal to São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport (meaning São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Minami-Daito Airport), and is located 12,182 miles (19,604 kilometers) away in Minami Daito, Okinawa, Japan.
• The airport is located 12 km from downtown São José dos Campos.
• São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport (SJK) currently has only 1 runway.
• In addition to being known as "São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport", another name for SJK is "Aeroporto de São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf".
• The closest airport to São José dos Campos-Professor Urbano Ernesto Stumpf Airport (SJK) is São Paulo/Guarulhos–Governador André Franco Montoro International Airport (GRU), which is located 41 miles (66 kilometers) WSW of SJK.
• Built in the 1950s basically to serve CTA, the airport originally had only a dirt runway.