Nonstop flight route between Grootfontein, Namibia and Wallops Island, Virginia, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Grootfontein Airport (GFY), Grootfontein, Namibia and Wallops Flight Facility Airport (WAL), Wallops Island, Virginia, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 7,230 miles (or 11,636 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 Grootfontein Airport and Wallops Flight Facility 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 Grootfontein Airport and Wallops Flight Facility 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 Grootfontein Airport (GFY):

• Grootfontein Airport (GFY) has 2 runways.
• The furthest airport from Grootfontein Airport (GFY) is PMRF Barking Sands (BKH), which is nearly antipodal to Grootfontein Airport (meaning Grootfontein Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from PMRF Barking Sands), and is located 12,222 miles (19,669 kilometers) away in Kekaha, Hawaii, United States.
• In addition to being known as "Grootfontein Airport", another name for GFY is "Grootfontein Airport".
• Because of Grootfontein Airport's high elevation of 4,636 feet, planes must typically fly at a faster airspeed in order to takeoff or land at GFY. Combined with a high temperature, this could make GFY a "Hot & High" airport, where the air density is lower than it would otherwise be at sea level.
• The closest airport to Grootfontein Airport (GFY) is Halali Airport (HAL), which is located 115 miles (186 kilometers) WNW of GFY.

Facts about Wallops Flight Facility Airport (WAL):

• The Wallops Visitor Center has a variety of hands-on exhibits and hosts weekly educational activities and programs to enable children to explore and learn about the technologies designed and used by NASA researchers and scientists.
• The Wallops mobile range instrumentation includes telemetry, radar, command and power systems.
• The WFF Research Airport is located on the Main Base.
• Because of Wallops Flight Facility Airport's relatively low elevation of 0 feet, planes can take off or land at Wallops Flight Facility 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 furthest airport from Wallops Flight Facility Airport (WAL) is Margaret River Airport (MGV), which is located 11,785 miles (18,965 kilometers) away in Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia.
• The closest airport to Wallops Flight Facility Airport (WAL) is Accomack County Airport (MFV), which is located 26 miles (42 kilometers) SW of WAL.
• There have been over 16,000 launches from the rocket testing range at Wallops since its founding in 1945 in the quest for information on the flight characteristics of airplanes, launch vehicles, and spacecraft, and to increase the knowledge of the Earth's upper atmosphere and the environment of outer space.
• In the early years, research at Wallops concentrated on obtaining aerodynamic data at transonic and low supersonic speeds.