Three USAF B52s and two B2 bombers have been deployed to RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom. Fairford is currently a standby airfield, with no aircraft permanently assigned to it, and is the only US airbase in Europe capable of operating strategic bombers. Its facilities include a long runway with an unrestricted load bearing capacity and two climate controlled hangars specially designed to take B2s.
This has been described as being a long planned training exercise, but it is difficult to see the first deployment of these aircraft in Europe since the 2003 Iraq War as being unrelated to the rising tension between Russia and the West over Ukraine. The B2s that bombed Libyan airfield in 2011 as part of the enforcement of the UN no-fly zone flew from the USA, with the help of in-flight tankers.
This BBC article includes a video from a reporter on board a B52.
Fairford was one of a global network of Trans-Oceanic Abort Landing sites for the Space Shuttle in friendly countries, which would have been used had a fault with a Shuttle prevented it returning to its US base. None of them were ever needed.
The Royal International Air Tattoo, one of the largest airshows in the world, is held annually at Fairford, with this year’s show on 11-13 July. As the US bombers are to stay at Fairford for a month, it will be interesting to see if they participate in it.
War and Security 
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