Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Mascot (near Sydney), Australia:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD), Mascot (near Sydney), Australia would travel a Great Circle distance of 10,618 miles (or 17,088 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 Sydney (Kingsford Smith) 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 Sydney (Kingsford Smith) 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):

• 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.
• 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.

Facts about Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD):

• Because of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport's relatively low elevation of 21 feet, planes can take off or land at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) 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.
• Terminal 2, located in the airport's north-eastern section, was the former home of Ansett Australia's domestic operations.
• The furthest airport from Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD) is Santa Maria Airport (SMA), which is nearly antipodal to Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (meaning Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Santa Maria Airport), and is located 12,144 miles (19,543 kilometers) away in Santa Maria, Portugal.
• Sydney Airport is an international airport located 8 km south of the city centre, in the suburb of Mascot in Sydney.
• In September 2012, Sydney Airport CEO Kerrie Mather announced the airport had abandoned the proposal to create alliance-based terminals in favour of terminals "based around specific airline requirements and transfer flows".
• The limitations of having only two runways that crossed each other had become apparent and governments grappled with Sydney's airport capacity for decades.
• The airport provides a shuttle service between the terminals at a cost of A$5.50.
• Sydney Airport is one of the oldest continuously operated airports in the world, and the busiest airport in Australia, handling 35,630,549 passengers in 2011 and 326,686 aircraftmovements in 2013.
• In addition to being known as "Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport", another name for SYD is "Kingsford-Smith Airport".
• Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD) has 3 runways.
• The Darwin – Sydney route includes data from May 2012, prior data was not released.
• The closest airport to Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD) is Bankstown Airport (BWU), which is located only 11 miles (18 kilometers) W of SYD.