Nonstop flight route between Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom and Koumac, New Caledonia:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Lakenheath (LKZ), Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom and Koumac Airport (KOC), Koumac, New Caledonia would travel a Great Circle distance of 10,069 miles (or 16,204 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 Koumac 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 Koumac 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):

• The closest airport to RAF Lakenheath (LKZ) is RAF Mildenhall (MHZ), which is located only 4 miles (7 kilometers) SW of LKZ.
• The work entailed removal of the existing runways and laying new ones comprising 12 inches of high-grade concrete.
• In 1940, the Air Ministry selected Lakenheath as an alternative for RAF Mildenhall and used it as a decoy airfield.
• The first use of Lakenheath Warren as a Royal Flying Corps airfield was in World War I, when the area was made into a bombing and ground-attack range for aircraft flying from elsewhere in the area.
• 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.
• 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.
• Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union in Europe began as early as 1946.

Facts about Koumac Airport (KOC):

• Koumac Airport (KOC) currently has only 1 runway.
• The closest airport to Koumac Airport (KOC) is Koné Airport (KNQ), which is located 51 miles (83 kilometers) SE of KOC.
• The furthest airport from Koumac Airport (KOC) is Nouadhibou International Airport (NDB), which is nearly antipodal to Koumac Airport (meaning Koumac Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Nouadhibou International Airport), and is located 12,349 miles (19,874 kilometers) away in Nouadhibou, Mauritania.
• Because of Koumac Airport's relatively low elevation of 138 feet, planes can take off or land at Koumac 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.