Nonstop flight route between Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada and Benson, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between CFB Cold Lake (YOD), Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada and RAF Benson (BEX), Benson, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom would travel a Great Circle distance of 4,060 miles (or 6,534 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 CFB Cold Lake and RAF Benson, 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 CFB Cold Lake and RAF Benson. 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 CFB Cold Lake (YOD):

• Personnel arrived at Cold Lake on March 31, 1954, with operations at RCAF Station Cold Lake beginning that day.
• The closest airport to CFB Cold Lake (YOD) is Bonnyville Airport (YBY), which is located only 20 miles (32 kilometers) WSW of YOD.
• In addition to being known as "CFB Cold Lake", another name for YOD is "Cold Lake/Group Captain R.W. McNair Airport".
• CFB Cold Lake (YOD) has 3 runways.
• In addition to its value as a training base, CFB Cold Lake's fighter/interceptor aircraft defend the western half of Canadian air space and together with aircraft from CFB Bagotville cover Canada's Arctic territory.
• The furthest airport from CFB Cold Lake (YOD) is Tôlanaro Airport (FTU), which is located 10,097 miles (16,250 kilometers) away in Tôlanaro, Madagascar.
• Operations in the 1950s and early 1960s centered around training crews destined for the CF100 Canuck all weather interceptor which was in operational use in both Canada and Europe.
• In 1990 18 sounding rockets were launched.
• Construction of what would become known as RCAF Station Cold Lake began in 1952 at the height of the Cold War after the site in Alberta's "Lakeland District" was chosen by the Royal Canadian Air Force for the country's premier air weapons training base.

Facts about RAF Benson (BEX):

• Royal Air Force Benson or RAF Benson is a Royal Air Force station near Benson in South Oxfordshire, England.
• The closest airport to RAF Benson (BEX) is RAF High Wycombe (HYC), which is located only 13 miles (22 kilometers) ENE of BEX.
• The furthest airport from RAF Benson (BEX) is Dunedin International Airport (DUD), which is located 11,879 miles (19,118 kilometers) away in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.
• The airfield is a well-known frost hollow, often recording the coldest temperatures in the UK.
• The Battles were replaced in December 1940 with Vickers Wellington medium bombers.
• The Chiltern Air Support Unit helicopter and the Thames Valley and Chiltern Air Ambulance helicopter are also both located here as lodger units.
• Its Supermarine Spitfire and de Havilland Mosquito aircraft flew missions over occupied Europe, for example bringing back battle damage assessment pictures after Operation Chastise.