Nonstop flight route between Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom and Harare, Zimbabwe:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Lakenheath (LKZ), Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom and Harare International Airport (HRE), Harare, Zimbabwe would travel a Great Circle distance of 5,194 miles (or 8,359 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 Lakenheath and Harare International 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 Lakenheath and Harare International 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 Lakenheath (LKZ):

• By the time construction ended the war with Germany was over and RAF Lakenheath was put on a care and maintenance status.
• 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.
• Although an RAF station, it hosts United States Air Force units and personnel.
• 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.
• Lakenheath Airfield was used by RAF flying units on detachment late in 1941.
• The closest airport to RAF Lakenheath (LKZ) is RAF Mildenhall (MHZ), which is located only 4 miles (7 kilometers) SW of LKZ.

Facts about Harare International Airport (HRE):

• The furthest airport from Harare International Airport (HRE) is Hilo International Airport (ITO), which is nearly antipodal to Harare International Airport (meaning Harare International Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Hilo International Airport), and is located 12,017 miles (19,339 kilometers) away in Hilo, Hawaii, United States.
• In 1951 the government announced that the airport would be developed as a joint user aerodrome for both civil aviation and the Southern Rhodesian Air Force.
• Harare International Airport (HRE) currently has only 1 runway.
• Harare International Airport handled 612,208 passengers last year.
• Civil aviation regulatory authority, the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe has its head office on level 3 of the new International Terminal.
• The runway is used by both the civilian airport and the Air Force of Zimbabwe whose base is on the southern side of the runway.
• Air Rhodesia established its headquarters at the airport in 1967, and since Independence in 1980, Air Rhodesia's successor, Air Zimbabwe, has maintained the status-quo with its head office, too, located at the airport.
• The closest airport to Harare International Airport (HRE) is Mutare Airport (UTA), which is located 125 miles (201 kilometers) SE of HRE.
• Commissioned in 1956 and officially opened on 5 February 1957, Salisbury Airport cost £924'000 to build.
• Because of Harare International Airport's high elevation of 4,887 feet, planes must typically fly at a faster airspeed in order to takeoff or land at HRE. Combined with a high temperature, this could make HRE a "Hot & High" airport, where the air density is lower than it would otherwise be at sea level.
• In 1949 the government purchased Kentucky and Adair farms east of Salisbury for the construction of the new airport.