Nonstop flight route between Wanaka, New Zealand and Edwards, California, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Wanaka Airport (WKA), Wanaka, New Zealand and Edwards Air Force Base (EDW), Edwards, California, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 7,141 miles (or 11,493 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 Wanaka Airport and Edwards 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 Wanaka Airport and Edwards 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 Wanaka Airport (WKA):

• The closest airport to Wanaka Airport (WKA) is Queenstown Airport (ZQN), which is located 32 miles (52 kilometers) SW of WKA.
• The airport is the site of the biennial Warbirds over Wanaka international airshow.
• Scheduled services were operated by Air New Zealand's 19 seater Beechcraft 1900D to Christchurch, this finished on 30 January 2013.
• Wanaka Airport (WKA) currently has only 1 runway.
• The furthest airport from Wanaka Airport (WKA) is A Coruña Airport (LCG), which is nearly antipodal to Wanaka Airport (meaning Wanaka Airport is almost on the exact opposite side of the Earth from A Coruña Airport), and is located 12,283 miles (19,768 kilometers) away in A Coruña, Spain.

Facts about Edwards Air Force Base (EDW):

• Notable occurrences at Edwards include Chuck Yeager's flight that broke the sound barrier in the Bell X-1, test flights of the North American X-15, the first landings of the Space Shuttle, and the 1986 around-the-world flight of the Rutan Voyager.
• Conscious that March Field was located in an area of increasing growth, and with the need for bombing and gunnery ranges for his units, base and 1st Wing commander Lieutenant Colonel Henry H.
• The closest airport to Edwards Air Force Base (EDW) is Mojave Air and Space Port (MHV), which is located only 19 miles (30 kilometers) NW of EDW.
• The furthest airport from Edwards Air Force Base (EDW) is Pierrefonds Airport (ZSE), which is located 11,414 miles (18,369 kilometers) away in Saint-Pierre, Réunion.
• The P-59s were tested at Muroc from October 1942 through February 1944 without a single accident and, though the aircraft did not prove to be combat worthy, the successful conduct of its test program, combined with the success of the Lockheed XP-80 program which followed it in early 1944, sealed the future destiny of the remote high desert installation.
• Its curriculum focused on the traditional field of performance testing and the relatively new field of stability and control, which had suddenly assumed critical importance with the dramatic increases in speed offered by the new turbojets.