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Europe · from 1943

RAF Fairford

Royal Air Force station in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom.

History

Royal Air Force Fairford or more simply RAF Fairford (IATA: FFD, ICAO: EGVA) is a Royal Air Force (RAF) station in Gloucestershire, United Kingdom. Since 2019, the base has played host to a Lockheed U-2S Dragon Lady detachment from the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron. It is the USAF's only European airfield for heavy bombers and routinely supports Bomber Task Force operations. Its most prominent use in recent decades has been as an airfield for United States Air Force B-52s during the first Gulf War in 1991, the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the 2003 Iraq War, and the 2026 Iran war.

RAF Fairford was the only TransOceanic Abort Landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle in the UK. Its runway is sufficiently long for a shuttle landing (3,045 m (9,990 ft)), and it also had NASA-trained fire and medical crews stationed on the airfield. The runway is rated with an unrestricted load-bearing capacity, meaning that it can support any aircraft with any type of load.

RAF Fairford is also the home of the Royal International Air Tattoo, an annual air display, which is one of the largest airshows in the world, with the 2003 show recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest military airshow ever, with an attendance of 535 aircraft.

Text from Wikipedia: RAF Fairford, CC BY-SA 4.0, lightly trimmed.

Key dates

  1. 1943
    Construction started in 1943 as part of a programme to open 14 airfields in southern England to be used by British and American troop-carrier transports and gliders.
  2. 1953
    The runway was completed in 1953 and served as a forward airbase for the first Convair B-36 Peacemaker aircraft from Carswell Air Force Base, Texas.
  3. 1965
    In 1965, RAF Fairford was the first home base of the RAF Aerobatic Team The Red Arrows.
  4. 1978
    The USAF returned with Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers deployed on rotation from the many KC-135 bases in the USA. On 15 November 1978 the 11th Strategic Group (11 SG) was activated at RAF Fairford.
  5. 1986
    KC-135 and KC-10 tankers deployed to Fairford supported Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya in 1986.
  6. 2004
    On 14 January 2004, the 420th Air Base Group (420 ABG) was established at RAF Fairford to improve the control of its geographically separated units (GSUs) that had been aligned beneath the 100th Air Refueling Wing at RAF Mildenhall.
  7. 2005
    On 12 May 2005, the USAF activated the 501st Combat Support Wing, with headquarters at RAF Alconbury, to provide support to its GSUs in the UK. The USAF withdrew all its uniformed personnel from RAF Alconbury by September 2010, leaving a civilian operating unit to maintain the base on a "care and maintenance" basis.
  8. 2018
    In November 2018, RAF announced that the 95th Reconnaissance Squadron and 488th Intelligence Squadron would relocate to Fairford by 2024.
  9. 2026
    The UK initially denied US President Donald Trump's request for United States use of the base, but on 1 March 2026, Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave permission for American aircraft to use the base for "defensive purposes".

Dates and events quoted from the same Wikipedia article (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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