Nonstop flight route between Tampa, Florida, United States and London, England, United Kingdom:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between MacDill Air Force Base (MCF), Tampa, Florida, United States and Gatwick Airport (LGW), London, England, United Kingdom would travel a Great Circle distance of 4,424 miles (or 7,120 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 MacDill Air Force Base and Gatwick 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 MacDill Air Force Base and Gatwick 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 MacDill Air Force Base (MCF):

• In addition to being known as "MacDill Air Force Base", another name for MCF is "MacDill AFB".
• Estimates of the number of crew members trained at the base during the war vary from 50,000 to 120,000, with as many as 15,000 troops were stationed at MacDill Field at one time.
• The rapid demobilization after the war led these units to be inactivated during 1946.
• All of these airfields came under the jurisdiction of Third Air Force.
• The furthest airport from MacDill Air Force Base (MCF) is Shark Bay Airport (MJK), which is located 11,436 miles (18,405 kilometers) away in Monkey Mia, Western Australia, Australia.
• The 29th Bombardment Group was moved to MacDill from Langley Field, Virginia on 21 May 1940.
• The base also supports the large military retiree community in the Tampa Bay area and surrounding environs.
• MacDill Field was one of two major Army Air Corps bases established in the Tampa Bay area in the buildup prior to World War II.
• The closest airport to MacDill Air Force Base (MCF) is Peter O. Knight Airport (TPF), which is located only 6 miles (10 kilometers) NE of MCF.

Facts about Gatwick Airport (LGW):

• Gatwick Airport (LGW) has 2 runways.
• Gatwick Airport is located 2.7 nautical miles north of the centre of Crawley,West Sussex, and 29.5 miles south of Central London.
• 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.
• On 6 July 1935, the aerodrome closed temporarily for renovations, which included the construction of the "Beehive", the world's first circular terminal building.
• On 27 May 1958, the original Gatwick railway station reopened as the Gatwick Airport station, and the Tinsley Green station was closed.
• 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 third extension to Gatwick's runway was completed in 1973, bringing it to 10,165 ft and allowing for non-stop narrow-body operations to the US west coast and commercially viable, long-range wide-body operations.Wardair became the first airline to operate Boeing 747s at Gatwick.KLM augmented its Heathrow–Amsterdam service with a Gatwick–Amsterdam route, making it the first non-UK airline to split operations between Heathrow and Gatwick for commercial reasons rather than to comply with government directives.
• Despite the rapid expansion of BUA's scheduled activities at Gatwick, the airport was dominated by non-scheduled services into the 1980s.
• Gatwick Airport handled 35,444,206 passengers last year.
• On 1 May 1963, non-scheduled operators began implementing the Ministry of Aviation's instruction to transfer all regular charter flights from Heathrow to Gatwick, restricting the former's use for non-scheduled operations to "occasional" charter flights.
• The closest airport to Gatwick Airport (LGW) is Redhill Aerodrome (KRH), which is located only 5 miles (8 kilometers) NNE of LGW.
• Although the airport was officially decommissioned in 1946, the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation continued operating it as a civil airfield.