Nonstop flight route between Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States and Zürich, Switzerland:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Grand Forks Air Force Base (RDR), Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States and Zurich Airport (ZRH), Zürich, Switzerland would travel a Great Circle distance of 4,490 miles (or 7,226 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 Grand Forks Air Force Base and Zurich 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 Grand Forks Air Force Base and Zurich 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 Grand Forks Air Force Base (RDR):

• The closest airport to Grand Forks Air Force Base (RDR) is Grand Forks International Airport (GFK), which is located only 10 miles (17 kilometers) E of RDR.
• SAGE operations were extremely expansive and GFADS was inactivated on 1 December 1963, when it was merged with the Minot Air Defense Sector at Minot AFB to the west.
• During 1965, the wing’s three missile squadrons were activated and crew training and certification began at Vandenberg AFB in southern California.
• Opened 57 years ago in early 1957, the base's current host unit is the 319th Air Base Wing assigned to the Expeditionary Center of the Air Mobility Command.
• In addition to being known as "Grand Forks Air Force Base", another name for RDR is "Grand Forks AFB".
• On 26 May 1972, President Nixon and Soviet general secretary Leonid Brezhnev signed the ABM Treaty, which limited each nation to one site to protect strategic forces and one site to protect the "National Command Authority." With work about 85 percent complete at Grand Forks, the United States chose to finish construction at the North Dakota site.
• The furthest airport from Grand Forks Air Force Base (RDR) is Margaret River Airport (MGV), which is located 10,504 miles (16,904 kilometers) away in Margaret River, Western Australia, Australia.

Facts about Zurich Airport (ZRH):

• Zurich Airport (ZRH) has 4 runways.
• A treaty was signed in 2001, regarding the limitation of flights over Germany.
• Schengen and non-Schengen arriving passengers are handled in separate areas of the central airside building, with non-Schengen passengers passing through immigration controls to reach the ground-side terminal complex.
• Zurich Airport handled 24,865,138 passengers last year.
• In addition to being known as "Zurich Airport", another name for ZRH is "Flughafen Zürich".
• Edelweiss Air has its head office in the Edelweiss Air Operations Center on the airport grounds.gategroup has its head office on the airport property.Helvetic Airways has its head office on the grounds of the airport in Kloten.
• The first expansion of the airport was submitted in 1956, but the budget for the expansion was not approved by the Swiss Government until 1958 and the expansion was completed in 1961.
• The closest airport to Zurich Airport (ZRH) is Emmen Swiss Air Base (EML), which is located 28 miles (45 kilometers) SSW of ZRH.
• The furthest airport from Zurich Airport (ZRH) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is nearly antipodal to Zurich Airport (meaning Zurich Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from Chatham Islands), and is located 12,087 miles (19,453 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.