Nonstop flight route between Lanseria, South Africa and Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Lanseria International Airport (HLA), Lanseria, South Africa and RAF Lakenheath (LKZ), Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom would travel a Great Circle distance of 5,660 miles (or 9,109 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 Lanseria International Airport and RAF Lakenheath, 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 Lanseria International Airport and RAF Lakenheath. 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 Lanseria International Airport (HLA):

• National Airways has its head office building on the airport property.
• The closest airport to Lanseria International Airport (HLA) is Grand Central Airport (GCJ), which is located only 14 miles (22 kilometers) ESE of HLA.
• Various maintenance and avionics companies are situated on the airport including Interjet Maintenance, Exucujet, Lanseria Jet centre and NAC with various other smaller outfits.
• Because of Lanseria International Airport's high elevation of 4,520 feet, planes must typically fly at a faster airspeed in order to takeoff or land at HLA. Combined with a high temperature, this could make HLA a "Hot & High" airport, where the air density is lower than it would otherwise be at sea level.
• Lanseria Airport started out as a grass strip airfield in 1972, the brainchild of two Pretoria pilots – Fanie Haacke and Abe Sher.
• The furthest airport from Lanseria International Airport (HLA) is Hana Airport (HNM), which is nearly antipodal to Lanseria International Airport (meaning Lanseria International Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Hana Airport), and is located 12,002 miles (19,316 kilometers) away in Hana, Hawaii, United States.
• On 15 November 2012 the airport was sold to a consortium consisting of Harith, an infrastructure development fund management company.
• In addition to being known as "Lanseria International Airport", another name for HLA is "Lanseria".
• Lanseria International Airport (HLA) currently has only 1 runway.

Facts about RAF Lakenheath (LKZ):

• The furthest airport from RAF Lakenheath (LKZ) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,827 miles (19,034 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• In 1940, the Air Ministry selected Lakenheath as an alternative for RAF Mildenhall and used it as a decoy airfield.
• The closest airport to RAF Lakenheath (LKZ) is RAF Mildenhall (MHZ), which is located only 4 miles (7 kilometers) SW of LKZ.
• The increasing tension of the Cold War lead to a re-evaluation of these deployments, and by 1953 SAC bombers began to move its heavy bomb groups further west, behind RAF fighter forces, to RAF Brize Norton, RAF Greenham Common, RAF Upper Heyford and RAF Fairford, while its shorter-range B-47 were sent to East Anglia.
• By the time construction ended the war with Germany was over and RAF Lakenheath was put on a care and maintenance status.