Nonstop flight route between Pituffik, Greenland and Queenstown, New Zealand:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Thule Air Base (THU), Pituffik, Greenland and Queenstown Airport (ZQN), Queenstown, New Zealand would travel a Great Circle distance of 9,738 miles (or 15,672 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 Thule Air Base and Queenstown 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 Thule Air Base and Queenstown 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 Thule Air Base (THU):

• A board of Air Force officers headed by Gordon P.
• In 1818, Sir John Ross’s expedition made first contact with nomadic Polar Eskimos in the area.
• The furthest airport from Thule Air Base (THU) is Hobart International Airport (HBA), which is located 9,883 miles (15,905 kilometers) away in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
• In the winter of 1956/57 three KC-97 tankers and alternately one of two RB-47H aircraft made polar flights to inspect Soviet defenses.
• Thule is the location where the fastest recorded sea level surface wind speed in the world was measured when a peak speed of 333 kilometres per hour was recorded on 8 March 1972 prior to the instrument's destruction.
• Thule AB was constructed in secret under the code name Operation Blue Jay, but the project was made public in September 1952.
• In addition to being known as "Thule Air Base", another name for THU is "Thule AB".
• The closest airport to Thule Air Base (THU) is Savissivik Heliport (SVR), which is located 69 miles (111 kilometers) ESE of THU.

Facts about Queenstown Airport (ZQN):

• Queenstown Airport (ZQN) has 2 runways.
• On 22 June 2010, a late-running Pacific Blue flight to Sydney took off from Queenstown.
• The furthest airport from Queenstown Airport (ZQN) is A Coruña Airport (LCG), which is nearly antipodal to Queenstown Airport (meaning Queenstown Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from A Coruña Airport), and is located 12,251 miles (19,716 kilometers) away in A Coruña, Spain.
• Queenstown Airport is located in Frankton, Otago, New Zealand, and serves the resort town of Queenstown.The airport is 8 km by road from the CBD.
• The closest airport to Queenstown Airport (ZQN) is Wanaka Airport (WKA), which is located 32 miles (52 kilometers) NE of ZQN.
• In another separate incident in June 2010 two airliners were found to have had a high potential to have breached the 1000 foot vertical separation required.