Nonstop flight route between London, England, United Kingdom and Fairford, England, United Kingdom:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Gatwick Airport (LGW), London, England, United Kingdom and RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom would travel a Great Circle distance of 78 miles (or 126 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 Gatwick Airport and RAF Fairford, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Gatwick Airport (LGW):

• Gatwick Airport (LGW) has 2 runways.
• Because of Gatwick Airport's relatively low elevation of 203 feet, planes can take off or land at Gatwick 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.
• BEA Helicopters made Gatwick their administrative and engineering base on 1 January 1964.
• The closest airport to Gatwick Airport (LGW) is Redhill Aerodrome (KRH), which is located only 5 miles (8 kilometers) NNE of LGW.
• The furthest airport from Gatwick Airport (LGW) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,901 miles (19,152 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• The name "Gatwick" was first recorded as "Gatwik" in 1241 on the site of today's airport, on the northern edge of the North Terminal's aircraft taxiing area.
• Gatwick Airport handled 35,444,206 passengers last year.
• British Caledonian began the first transatlantic scheduled service by a private UK airline to New York and Los Angeles from Gatwick in April 1973.
• The first scheduled flight departed from the Beehive terminal on 17 May 1936, bound for Paris.
• In May 1950, Gatwick's first charter flight left the airport's original grass runway for Calvi on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

Facts about RAF Fairford (FFD):

• RAF Fairford is also the home of the Royal International Air Tattoo, an annual air display.
• 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.
• RAF Fairford was the only TransOceanic Abort Landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle in the UK.
• 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.
• 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.
• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.
• 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.