Nonstop flight route between Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom and Gander, Newfoundland, Canada:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Lakenheath (LKZ), Lakenheath, England, United Kingdom and Gander International Airport (YQX), Gander, Newfoundland, Canada would travel a Great Circle distance of 2,367 miles (or 3,809 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 Gander International 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):

• In 1940, the Air Ministry selected Lakenheath as an alternative for RAF Mildenhall and used it as a decoy airfield.
• Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union in Europe began as early as 1946.
• Meanwhile on 30 April 1956, two Lockheed U-2s were airlifted to RAF Lakenheath to form CIA Detachment A.
• In response to the threat by the Soviet Union, by the 1948 Berlin blockade, President Truman decided to realign USAFE into a permanent combat-capable force.
• RAF Lakenheath, and nearby, RAF Mildenhall, are the two main U.S.
• 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.

Facts about Gander International Airport (YQX):

• Gander International Airport (YQX) has 2 runways.
• Runway 04/22 was extended from 8,400 to 10,500 ft in 1971.
• Because of Gander International Airport's relatively low elevation of 496 feet, planes can take off or land at Gander International 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.
• A major reason that Gander received so much traffic was partly due to its ability to handle large aircraft, but primarily because Transport Canada and Nav Canada instructed pilots coming from Europe to avoid the airports in major urban centres of Central Canada, like Lester B.
• The furthest airport from Gander International Airport (YQX) is Albany Airport (ALH), which is located 11,395 miles (18,338 kilometers) away in Albany, Western Australia, Australia.
• During the Cold War Gander was notable for the number of persons from the former Warsaw Pact nations who defected there.
• Gander is near the great circle route between cities of the U.S.
• To honour the people of Gander and Halifax for their support during the operation, Lufthansa named a new Airbus A340-300 "Gander/Halifax" on May 16, 2002.
• The closest airport to Gander International Airport (YQX) is St. John's International Airport (YYT), which is located 124 miles (199 kilometers) SE of YQX.
• In late-1985, Gander was the site of the Arrow Air Flight 1285 disaster, in which a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 with 256 people on board crashed during takeoff due to atmospheric icing.