RAF Fairford

Construction started in 1943 under a programme to open 14 airfields in southern England for British and American troop-carrier transports and gliders, and the station opened on 18 January 1944. It had been intended for United States forces, but its first occupants were RAF: No. 620 Squadron arrived on 18 March with Short Stirling Mk.IVs, joined on 25 March by No. 190 Squadron on the same type. The aircraft dropped troops and supplies by parachute and towed Airspeed Horsa assault gliders; the station's transports and gliders were used for the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and the RAF used the station to lift British troops for Operation Market Garden.

In the early years of the Cold War the British and American governments agreed that USAF Strategic Air Command elements would be based in the UK. The established East Anglian bases were considered vulnerable to bomber attack, and airfields further behind the RAF fighter defences were sought; Fairford was one of the four chosen. The Americans occupied Fairford among other stations in 1948, and in 1950 the airfield was transferred to the United States Air Force for strategic bomber operations.

A 10,000-foot runway was built for long-range work and completed in 1953, and the station served as a forward base for Convair B-36 Peacemakers from Carswell Air Force Base in Texas. B-47s followed, kept at a heightened state of alert as tensions with the Soviet Union increased. In 1965 Fairford was the first home base of the RAF Aerobatic Team, the Red Arrows.

Because of its long runway, Fairford was chosen in 1969 as the British test centre for Concorde, a role it held until 1977. The USAF then returned with Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers on rotation, and the 11th Strategic Group was activated at the station on 15 November 1978 and received its own aircraft in September 1979. Aircraft and aircrews rotated in for the European Tanker Task Force, and KC-135s and KC-10s at Fairford supported Operation El Dorado Canyon against Libya in 1986. The group was inactivated on 7 August 1990, the tankers were withdrawn the same year, and the station was returned to standby status.

Fairford was designated a forward operating location for the USAF. B-52s and KC-135s from Eaker AFB in Arkansas flew from it in the first Gulf War in 1991, and B-52s, B-1Bs and KC-135s flew from it during Operation Allied Force in 1999. Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 included B-52s based at Minot AFB but flying from Fairford.

Between May 2000 and May 2002 the runway and fuel systems were rebuilt in a $100 million programme, described as the largest NATO-funded airfield construction project in a NATO country since the Cold War. The station was also the United Kingdom's only TransOceanic Abort Landing site for NASA's Space Shuttle. Two climate-controlled hangars for the B-2A Spirit, costing £12.2 million and built for maintenance of its low-observable coating, were completed in December 2004.

Fairford is owned by the Ministry of Defence and, though designated an RAF station, is made available to the US Department of Defense under the 1951 NATO Status of Forces Agreement; its use for combat operations is a joint decision of the two governments. On 1 April 2006 it was designated a protected site under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, making trespass there a specific criminal offence. The USAF withdrew its uniformed staff by September 2010, leaving a civilian unit to hold the base on a care-and-maintenance basis, reactivable for heavy bomber operations in 24 to 48 hours.

The Royal International Air Tattoo is held at Fairford over the third weekend in July in support of the RAF Charitable Trust, drawing up to 185,000 spectators. The 2003 show was recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest military airshow ever, with 535 aircraft.

Heavy bombers returned from June 2014 with B-52H and B-2A deployments and, from September 2016, B-1Bs on Air Force Global Strike Command exercises. A detachment of Lockheed U-2S Dragon Ladies from the 99th Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron arrived in September 2019. On 28 August 2020, four of six B-52Hs at Fairford flew the European portion of Allied Sky, a single-day overflight of all 30 NATO countries. In March 2026 B-1 Lancers and B-52s deployed as part of the US-Israeli offensive on Iran. The UK had at first denied President Donald Trump's request, but on 1 March 2026 Prime Minister Keir Starmer gave permission for American aircraft to use the base for "defensive purposes".