Nonstop flight route between Sofia, Bulgaria and Great Falls, Montana, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF), Sofia, Bulgaria and Malmstrom Air Force Base (GFA), Great Falls, Montana, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 5,617 miles (or 9,039 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 Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna and Malmstrom Air Force Base, 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 Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna and Malmstrom Air Force Base. 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 Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF):

• In addition to being known as "Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna", other names for SOF include "Vrazhdebna Airport" and "Летище София".
• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) currently has only 1 runway.
• The closest airport to Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) is Plovdiv Airport (PDV), which is located 86 miles (138 kilometers) ESE of SOF.
• Two de-icing platforms are constructed to allow centralised de-icing procedures in winter.
• The Government terminal is located in the western side of Sofia Airport.
• Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna handled 350,432 passengers last year.
• Options for different airport developments began to be examined in the mid-1960s.
• Service life of the new airport control tower will be more than 40 years and is designed to serve the airport with a possible extension.
• Design and construction of a new control tower was discussed in 2006 but this project appeared to be in abeyance by 2008.
• The furthest airport from Sofia Airport Vrazhdebna (SOF) is Chatham Islands (CHT), which is located 11,437 miles (18,405 kilometers) away in Waitangi, Chatham Islands, New Zealand.
• By the late 1970s, the terminal was handling in the region of three million passengers a year, a million of them on domestic routes.
• The new Sofia tower will be situated to the west of Terminal 2 and will be complementing the terminal building in architectural terms.

Facts about Malmstrom Air Force Base (GFA):

• With the phaseout of the B-36 from the inventory in the late 1950s, the need for fighter escorts of SAC bombers was eliminated.
• Great Falls was reassigned to the Central Air Defense Force at Richards-Gebaur Air Force Base in 1953.
• Aircraft shipments to the Soviet Union stopped in September 1945, when World War II ended, with approximately 8,000 aircraft having been processed in a 21-month period.
• The closest airport to Malmstrom Air Force Base (GFA) is Great Falls International Airport (GTF), which is located only 9 miles (14 kilometers) W of GFA.
• The furthest airport from Malmstrom Air Force Base (GFA) is Sir Gaëtan Duval Airport (RRG), which is located 10,495 miles (16,891 kilometers) away in Rodrigues Island, Mauritius.
• This included one of the greatest technology transfers in the history of the world.
• By 1954, several aircraft control and warning squadrons had been formed at the base.
• The base's runway was closed on 31 December 1996 for aircraft operations.
• In addition to being known as "Malmstrom Air Force Base", another name for GFA is "Malmstrom AFB".