Nonstop flight route between Tonopah, Nevada, United States and Nikolai, Alaska, United States:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between Tonopah Test Range Airport (XSD), Tonopah, Nevada, United States and Nikolai Airport (NIB), Nikolai, Alaska, United States would travel a Great Circle distance of 2,341 miles (or 3,767 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 Tonopah Test Range Airport and Nikolai Airport, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about Tonopah Test Range Airport (XSD):

• In May 1973, when Project HAVE IDEA was initiated for joint technical and tactical evaluation of Soviet aircraft types, the tactical evaluation flights of foreign aircraft were undertaken by Detachment 1, 57th Fighter Weapons Wing.
• It is known that the USAF continues a Foreign Materiel Acquisition/Exploitation program, although the extent of acquisitions and operations of that program is not available.
• The closest airport to Tonopah Test Range Airport (XSD) is Tonopah Airport (TPH), which is located 25 miles (40 kilometers) NW of XSD.
• The furthest airport from Tonopah Test Range Airport (XSD) is Pierrefonds Airport (ZSE), which is located 11,207 miles (18,036 kilometers) away in Saint-Pierre, Réunion.
• In addition, unconfirmed Soviet aircraft flown were MiG-25 Foxbat.
• The assets of the squadron could not go to the boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB, and the fate of them remains in some cases, still classified.
• The advent of Operation Rolling Thunder during the Vietnam War in March of 1965 led to the introduction of the obsolete and subsonic MiG-17 and the supersonic MiG-21 by the North Vietnamese Air Force being pitted against U.S.
• The Tonopah Test Range airfield came into existence in 1957 and was used by the Department of Energy, the Air Force, and several contractors.
• The earliest known depiction of the airfield was on the July 1970 Air Force Tactical Pilotage Chart.

Facts about Nikolai Airport (NIB):

• The closest airport to Nikolai Airport (NIB) is McGrath Airport (MCG), which is located 39 miles (63 kilometers) W of NIB.
• Nikolai Airport (NIB) currently has only 1 runway.
• The furthest airport from Nikolai Airport (NIB) is Port Elizabeth International Airport (PLZ), which is located 10,431 miles (16,787 kilometers) away in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
• Nikolai Airport covers an area of 76 acres at an elevation of 441 feet above mean sea level.
• In addition to being known as "Nikolai Airport", other names for NIB include "FSP" and "Nikolai".
• Nikolai Airport is a state-owned public-use airport located one nautical mile northeast of the central business district of Nikolai, a city in the Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area of the U.S.
• Because of Nikolai Airport's relatively low elevation of 441 feet, planes can take off or land at Nikolai 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.