Nonstop flight route between Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom and Timbuktu, Mali:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Lakenheath (LKZ), Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom and Timbuktu Airport (TOM), Timbuktu, Mali would travel a Great Circle distance of 2,473 miles (or 3,980 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 RAF Lakenheath and Timbuktu Airport, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

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 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.
• Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union in Europe began as early as 1946.
• In 1940, the Air Ministry selected Lakenheath as an alternative for RAF Mildenhall and used it as a decoy airfield.
• The work entailed removal of the existing runways and laying new ones comprising 12 inches of high-grade concrete.
• Meanwhile on 30 April 1956, two Lockheed U-2s were airlifted to RAF Lakenheath to form CIA Detachment A.
• In April 1947, RAF Bomber Command returned to Lakenheath and had the runways repaired, resurfaced, and readied for operations by May 1948.

Facts about Timbuktu Airport (TOM):

• The furthest airport from Timbuktu Airport (TOM) is Yasawa Island Airport (YAS), which is nearly antipodal to Timbuktu Airport (meaning Timbuktu Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Yasawa Island Airport), and is located 12,400 miles (19,956 kilometers) away in Yasawa Island, Fiji.
• In addition to being known as "Timbuktu Airport", another name for TOM is "Tombouctou Airport".
• The closest airport to Timbuktu Airport (TOM) is Goundam Airport (GUD), which is located 47 miles (75 kilometers) WSW of TOM.
• Timbuktu Airport (TOM) currently has only 1 runway.
• Because of Timbuktu Airport's relatively low elevation of 863 feet, planes can take off or land at Timbuktu 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.