Watch As American Heavy Iron Descends On The English Countryside To Battle Crosswinds

Royal Air Force (RAF) Fairford is one of the largest remaining stations with a regular American presence in the UK. In this video we first see an Airbus A400M Atlas airlifter stooging around in the pattern. After that we see three 2nd Bomb Wing (BW) B-52H Stratofortress bombers approach and land- The Big Stick 61-0020 (CN 464447) of the 20th Bomb Squadron (BS) Buccaneers, Black Jack 60-0021 (CN 464386) of the 96th BS Red Devils, and Posse 60-0024 (CN 464389) also of the 20th BS- all from Barksdale Air Force Base (AFB) near Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana. Note the crosswind component on the active and resultant crabbing landings the BUFFs make. Thanks to YouTuber blizzardthewatcher for uploading these great clips.

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RAF Fairford also hosts the annual Royal International Air Tattoo. This second video features the approach, landing, and taxi to the ramp of very first Lockheed Martin C-5M Super Galaxy 86-0013 (CN 500-99) of the Air Mobility Command’s 436th Airlift Wing (AW), 512th Air Force Reserve (AFRES) AW based at Dover AFB in Delaware.

After the C-5M is parked we see Rockwell Boeing B-1B Lancer 86-0124 (CN 84) with the 9th BS Bats taxi to the active and takeoff using every available pound of thunderous afterburning thrust. This particular Bone is based at Dyess AFB near Abilene in Texas. You might want to turn your speakers down for this clip. Not!

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Bill Walton
Bill Walton
Bill Walton is a life-long aviation historian, enthusiast, and aircraft recognition expert. As a teenager Bill helped his engineer father build an award-winning T-18 homebuilt airplane in their up-the-road from Oshkosh Wisconsin basement. Bill is a freelance writer, screenwriter, and humorist, an avid sailor, fledgling aviator, engineer, father, uncle, mentor, teacher, coach, and Navy veteran. Bill lives north of Houston TX under the approach path to KDWH runway 17R, which means he gets to look up at a lot of airplanes. A very good thing.

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