Nonstop flight route between Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, United States and Mascot (near Sydney), Australia:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between NAS JRB Willow Grove (NXX), Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, United States and Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD), Mascot (near Sydney), Australia would travel a Great Circle distance of 9,876 miles (or 15,894 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 NAS JRB Willow Grove and Sydney (Kingsford Smith) 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 NAS JRB Willow Grove and Sydney (Kingsford Smith) 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 NAS JRB Willow Grove (NXX):

• Flight activity began here in 1926 when Harold Frederick Pitcairn constructed a hangar and a grass airstrip in Horsham, Pennsylvania.
• Because of NAS JRB Willow Grove's relatively low elevation of 335 feet, planes can take off or land at NAS JRB Willow Grove 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.
• Currently, the 111th Fighter Wing, operating the A-10 Thunderbolt II, has lost all its aircraft to other ANG Squadrons under BRAC.
• The furthest airport from NAS JRB Willow Grove (NXX) is Margaret River Airport (MGV), which is located 11,726 miles (18,871 kilometers) away in Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia.
• On May 28, 2005, the Base Realignment and Closure commission recommended that NAS JRB Willow Grove be closed as part of the 2005 BRAC round, that the tenant Air Force Reserve Command airlift wing be inactivated and that Navy Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve flying units relocate to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey as tenant units.
• The closest airport to NAS JRB Willow Grove (NXX) is Wings Field (BBX), which is located only 8 miles (12 kilometers) SW of NXX.
• NAS JRB Willow Grove (NXX) currently has only 1 runway.

Facts about Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD):

• In March 2010, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released a report sharply critical of price gouging at Sydney airport, ranking it fifth out of five airports.
• Because of Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport's relatively low elevation of 21 feet, planes can take off or land at Sydney (Kingsford Smith) 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.
• Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD) has 3 runways.
• The closest airport to Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD) is Bankstown Airport (BWU), which is located only 11 miles (18 kilometers) W of SYD.
• In September 2012, Sydney Airport CEO Kerrie Mather announced the airport had abandoned the proposal to create alliance-based terminals in favour of terminals "based around specific airline requirements and transfer flows".
• The issue of a second airport for Sydney arose again after the Rudd government was elected in 2007.
• The furthest airport from Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (SYD) is Santa Maria Airport (SMA), which is nearly antipodal to Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport (meaning Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Santa Maria Airport), and is located 12,144 miles (19,543 kilometers) away in Santa Maria, Portugal.
• The limitations of having only two runways that crossed each other had become apparent and governments grappled with Sydney's airport capacity for decades.
• In addition to being known as "Sydney (Kingsford Smith) Airport", another name for SYD is "Kingsford-Smith Airport".