The arrival of a huge US Air Force managed to touch down safely after several passes from either end.
It is understood that three of the B52 bombers from Minot Air Force Base were based at the Cotswold airbase in September will be at RAF Fairford for a three week exercise.
B52s were based at the Cotswold airbase in September when the US Air Force contributed in a large NATO operation in the Czech Republic.
During the 1990 Iraq war the B52s have been regular visitors with B1s and U2s since.
The base was left by the US many years ago but still remains in a state of ‘maintained reserve’ for the force.
Its two-mile long runway was the UK’s only TransOceanic Abort Landing site for the NASA Space Shuttle, and one of only four in Western Europe. In 1983 a shuttle attached to the top of a Jumbo Jet touched down on the same runway en route to the Paris Air Show.
