On Thursday 25 February 2027 at 6pm Clive Richards will consider how and why RAF Fairford was used by the USAF prior to the Gulf War. This lecture will be hosted virtually via Crowdcast.

On 5 February 1991, the first Strategic Air Command (SAC) Boeing B-52Gs to be assigned to 806th Bombardment Wing (Provisional) (BW(P)) landed at their new, albeit temporary, home – RAF Fairford. Although some ‘eight hours and 2,750 miles away from the theater of war’, their arrival nevertheless meant that this Gloucestershire airfield would soon join the Coalition air campaign then being waged against Iraq.

However, the 806th BW(P) was by no means the first USAF unit to operate from Fairford. Its’ use by the US military predated the First Gulf War by some considerable margin; as the Los Angeles Times reported on 6 February, the ‘arrival of the American planes marked a return engagement.’ The story of Fairford up to the First Gulf War not only illustrates the vicissitudes of the US presence in the UK, but also the evolution of US strategic air power during the Cold War and the complications that can result from operating from foreign soil.

This presentation will consider the how and why Fairford was used by the USAF in general – and SAC in particular – before the First Gulf War. In addition to examining the way in which the USAF presence at Fairford waxed and waned prior to the 1980s, it will also outline the evolution and employment of the Stratofortress as a nuclear and conventional weapons platform. It will then go on to consider the way in which these two factors intertwined from 1980 onwards, culminating with Fairford’s participation in operations against Iraq in 1991.

Clive Richards joined the RAF Museum at the beginning of 1993. Following three years as a curator in the museum’s archive and library he transferred to the Ministry of Defence Air Historical Branch (RAF) in August 1996, where he worked as a researcher until relocating to Cornwall in 2008. In December 2017 he was awarded an MA in Air Power History by the University of Birmingham.

Now based in the West Midlands, Clive continues to research and write aviation history and has contributed chapters, papers and articles to a range of publications and conferences. He is a member of the British Commission for Military History, the Society for Military History, the RAF Historical Society and the Society for Army Historical Research.

Virtual Lecture: A ‘return engagement’: RAF Fairford and the US Air Force, 1950-1991