Nonstop flight route between Santa Barbara, California, United States and Big Spring, Texas, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Santa Barbara Airport (SBA), Santa Barbara, California, United States and Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield (BGS), Big Spring, Texas, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 1,067 miles (or 1,717 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 relatively short distance between Santa Barbara Airport and Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Santa Barbara Airport (SBA):

• Five airlines serve the Airport as of July 2013 with non-stop flights to Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma.
• The United Airlines system timetable dated February 1, 1937 listed daily round trip service flown with a Douglas DC-3 twin prop aircraft on a routing of Los Angeles-Santa Barbara-San Francisco-Oakland.
• Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) has 3 runways.
• The furthest airport from Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) is Pierrefonds Airport (ZSE), which is located 11,487 miles (18,486 kilometers) away in Saint-Pierre, Réunion.
• With the outbreak of WWII the airport became MCAS Santa Barbara in 1942, an aviator training base for the U.S Marines.
• The closest airport to Santa Barbara Airport (SBA) is Santa Ynez Airport (SQA), which is located only 18 miles (29 kilometers) NW of SBA.
• On August 18, 2011 the airport opened a new 72,000 square foot terminal to add to the single story terminal built by United Airlines in 1942.
• Because of Santa Barbara Airport's relatively low elevation of 10 feet, planes can take off or land at Santa Barbara 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.

Facts about Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield (BGS):

• By the mid-1970s, the end of the Vietnam War, the associated financial costs of that conflict and related cuts in USAF force structure and future defense budgets meant a marked decrease in the need for Air Force pilots.
• The furthest airport from Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield (BGS) is Sir Gaëtan Duval Airport (RRG), which is located 11,166 miles (17,969 kilometers) away in Rodrigues Island, Mauritius.
• The closest airport to Webb Air Force Base Big Spring Army Airfield (BGS) is Midland Airpark (MDD), which is located 36 miles (58 kilometers) WSW of BGS.
• The Air Force established a standard wing structure—a dual deputy concept—in 1963.
• In 1956, the Air Defense Command 331st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron was transferred to Webb from Stewart Air Force Base in New York to defend the southern United States border on air intercept missions as part of the Central Air Defense Force.
• 78th Flying Training Wing
• At that time, nearly 6,000 students had graduated and the field's training aircraft had flown approximately 400,000 hours and more than 60 million miles.
• Webb Air Force Base, previously named Big Spring Air Force Base, was a United States Air Force facility of the Air Training Command that operated from 1951 to 1977 in west Texas within the current city limits of Big Spring.