Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and St. Moritz / Samedan, Switzerland:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Samedan Airport (SMV), St. Moritz / Samedan, Switzerland would travel a Great Circle distance of 635 miles (or 1,023 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 Samedan 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 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.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.
• RAF Fairford was constructed in 1944 to serve as an airfield for British and American troop carriers and gliders for the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II.
• 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.
• Fairford was chosen in 1969 as the British test centre for the Concorde aircraft, which continued until 1977.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Facts about Samedan Airport (SMV):

• In addition to being known as "Samedan Airport", another name for SMV is "Flughafen Engadin".
• The furthest airport from Samedan Airport (SMV) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is nearly antipodal to Samedan Airport (meaning Samedan Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Chatham Islands), and is located 12,075 miles (19,433 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• Samedan Airport (SMV) currently has only 1 runway.
• The closest airport to Samedan Airport (SMV) is Lugano Airport (LUG), which is located 59 miles (95 kilometers) SW of SMV.
• The airport has one runway designated 03/21 with an asphalt pavement measuring 1800 x 40 metres.
• At an elevation of 1,707 metres, it is one of the highest airports in Europe.
• Because of Samedan Airport's high elevation of 5,600 feet, planes must typically fly at a faster airspeed in order to takeoff or land at SMV. Combined with a high temperature, this could make SMV a "Hot & High" airport, where the air density is lower than it would otherwise be at sea level.