Nonstop flight route between Coningsby, England, United Kingdom and Georgetown, Ascension Island, Saint Helena:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Coningsby (QCY), Coningsby, England, United Kingdom and RAF Ascension (ASI), Georgetown, Ascension Island, Saint Helena would travel a Great Circle distance of 4,301 miles (or 6,922 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 Coningsby and RAF Ascension, 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 Coningsby and RAF Ascension. 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 Coningsby (QCY):

• The base received its first jet aircraft — the English Electric Canberra — in 1953.
• The closest airport to RAF Coningsby (QCY) is RAF Binbrook (GSY), which is located 24 miles (39 kilometers) N of QCY.
• The RAF Coningsby structure as of October 2010
• Coningsby was the first airfield to receive the Phantoms, the Tornado ADV and was the first to receive its replacement, the Eurofighter Typhoon.
• The furthest airport from RAF Coningsby (QCY) is Dunedin International Airport (DUD), which is located 11,781 miles (18,959 kilometers) away in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.

Facts about RAF Ascension (ASI):

• The furthest airport from RAF Ascension (ASI) is Ujae Airport (UJE), which is nearly antipodal to RAF Ascension (meaning RAF Ascension is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Ujae Airport), and is located 12,370 miles (19,907 kilometers) away in Ujae Atoll, Marshall Islands.
• The NASA Tracking Station at Devil's Ashpit and the Cable & Wireless Earth Station at Donkey Plain were built in the "mid-sixties" for space operations and communications, including the latter's use for transmitting "microwave borne data via the Early Bird Satellite back to the NASA facility at Andover, Maine.
• In addition to being known as "RAF Ascension", another name for ASI is "Wideawake Airbase/Field".
• RAF Ascension Island was re-garrisoned by the RAF in 1982 and used extensively as a staging base during the Falklands War.
• The RAF presence on Ascension is backed up by United States Air Force personnel, who contribute a similar number of service personnel to ensure the effective running of the station, under the command of Captain Eduard Rodriguez, who is responsible to the RAF Station Commander.
• The closest airport to RAF Ascension (ASI) is Sasstown Airport (SAZ), which is located 965 miles (1,553 kilometers) NNE of ASI.
• The Target Tracking Radar Station was a Nike Zeus test facility for tracking reentry vehicles from Cape Canaveral missile launches.