Nonstop flight route between Falkland Islands and Hammerfest, Finnmark, Norway:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Mount Pleasant (MPN), Falkland Islands and Hammerfest Airport (HFT), Hammerfest, Finnmark, Norway would travel a Great Circle distance of 9,365 miles (or 15,072 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 Mount Pleasant and Hammerfest 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 Mount Pleasant and Hammerfest 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 Mount Pleasant (MPN):

• RAF Mount Pleasant is the newest permanent airfield in the Royal Air Force.
• The furthest airport from RAF Mount Pleasant (MPN) is Mohe Gulian Airport (OHE), which is nearly antipodal to RAF Mount Pleasant (meaning RAF Mount Pleasant is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Mohe Gulian Airport), and is located 12,353 miles (19,879 kilometers) away in Mohe, Heilongjiang, China.
• After the surrender of the Argentine ground forces on the islands, the British still faced the problem of potential Argentine air attacks from Argentina, so an aircraft carrier had to remain on station to guard the islands with its squadron of Sea Harriers until the local airfield was prepared for jet aircraft.
• 33 Engineer Regiment provides constant support and is part of the Joint Service Falkland Islands Detachment which consists of RAF and RLC EOD teams.
• Flights of Phantoms were rotated through the airfield until 1992 when they were replaced with Tornado F3s.
• On 10 November 2011, it was announced that Prince William would be serving as a Sea King pilot on the station for six weeks during February and March 2012.
• The closest airport to RAF Mount Pleasant (MPN) is Port Stanley Airport (PSY), which is located 30 miles (49 kilometers) ENE of MPN.

Facts about Hammerfest Airport (HFT):

• The Widerøe Dash 8-103 aircraft LN-WIK underwent a hard landing on 1 May 2005.
• The furthest airport from Hammerfest Airport (HFT) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 10,456 miles (16,828 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• Widerøe introduced the de Havilland Canada Dash 7 on the route from Tromsø Airport to Hammerfest in 1983, the same year as Norving started flights from Hammerfest to Hasvik Airport.
• In addition to being known as "Hammerfest Airport", another name for HFT is "Hammerfest lufthavn".
• Hammerfest Airport handled 120,503 passengers last year.
• Because of Hammerfest Airport's relatively low elevation of 262 feet, planes can take off or land at Hammerfest 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.
• The closest airport to Hammerfest Airport (HFT) is Hasvik Airport (HAA), which is located 38 miles (60 kilometers) WSW of HFT.