RAF Fairford BTF - May/June 2024

[Brevet Cable]

According to the Fairford Movements site, yesterday's callsign was CHUCK not CHUG.

Whatever the issue was with '51, on the NATS website it had Fairford closed for 3 or 4 hours after it had landed.

Oh, and reading on the PPRuNE forum earlier, apparently FR24 did one of it's oddball bits of tracking and showed it landing at Kemble!

[Brevet Cable]

Fairford Movements site has 2x B-52s up at around 07:10hrs today ( CLOUT callsign )

Looking on ADS-B Exchange, they've been playing out over the Med & now look to be routing back up through France, currently abeam Bordeaux

[Brevet Cable]

coasting out - Cherbourg Peninsula

[Brevet Cable]

coasting in - Bournemouth / IOW

[Brevet Cable]

Swindon

[Brevet Cable]

Up, and heading Northeast

[Brevet Cable]

Bit late posting, but B-52 up several hours ago, usual NE routing.

[Brevet Cable]

According to the Fairford Movements site, Saturday's flight was a single BELCH

Nowt today yet.

[Brevet Cable]

No B-52s yet, that I know of, but a C-17 ( REACH 4174 ) landed a couple of hours ago & has recently departed heading roughly SW

[Brevet Cable]

Still no B-52s, but now have a KC-135 playing at Fairford.

[CWS]

Any idea how much longer this deployment will go on for ?

[Brevet Cable]

Looking on the CAA 'Article 250 Permit' site, no civi cargo aircraft listed for Fairford yet.
They normally last about a month, so in theory another week or two to go.

So as you can guess, unless one of them 'does a B-1' and goes seriously tech they'll probably all be gone well before RIAT.

[FarnboroJohn]

Looking on the CAA 'Article 250 Permit' site, no civi cargo aircraft listed for Fairford yet.
They normally last about a month, so in theory another week or two to go.

So as you can guess, unless one of them 'does a B-1' and goes seriously tech they'll probably all be gone well before RIAT.

If the type is listed for RIAT than that gives USAF the opportunity to send one I haven't seen, as all the ones here now are familiar!

[Brevet Cable]

Big surprise, and I bet it woke the neighbours up!
Just looked on ADS-B Exch. and saw that two of the B-52s departed earlier and are currently routing South over France ( approaching the Med. )

[Brevet Cable]

Bigger surprise....
Not caught a callsign yet, but sounds like another B-52's up!

Edited to add...
Looking on FR24 & ABS-B Exch, this one's on the more usual NE heading

[Brevet Cable]

No idea on the two early departure B-52s, but the later one which went NE looks to be on it's way back....currently over the North Sea

[FarnboroJohn]

The two early departures came back very late (or early) passing over Farnborough in clear skies at 0112 and 0135 local this morning.

[Brevet Cable]

Woke the neighbours up again, then.

Last I saw of them on the various tracking sites was when they were still Southbound and about to cross into the Suez Canal area

[FarnboroJohn]

Perhaps of interest the North-East one was photographed on return and was 61-0005, so that aircraft wasn't (contra the Fairford Movements blog) one of the two that went South. The lead aircraft on return was claiming to be 61-0012 while the other one trailing by 20 minutes or so wasn't giving out its identity.

[Brevet Cable]

To add to the confusion....
The likes of FR24 & ADSB-Ex. have the earlybirds as 60-0012 & 61-0018
61-0005 was definitely the later NE one.

Forgot to say that there appeared to be some Mildenhall KC-135s trailing the Southbound B-52s until down over the Med., don't know if they were related or not.

[Roger_Over]

I can add visual confirmation that 61-0005 'Arc Light' call sign Chock 33 was the one that returned at 12.58, and 60-0037 was still sat in the same place since the engine swap on 5th June. By a process of elimination the other two were definitely as reported in detail on Fighter Control.

[Brevet Cable]

Unfortunately this is UKAR not FC

[Roger_Over]

Yes this is UKAR, which is best for airshow info and photos, and FC is best for up to date tracking/OTT/BTF info and for the number crunchers to verify serials.

Both are good, and it's useful to refer to both.

[FarnboroJohn]

For some reason I just can't get the hang of FC, though I'm aware of how good it is. They seem to have strange rules about what you can and can't see and even stranger ones about posting. It's just me I expect.

[Brevet Cable]

Nope, it's not just you.
Not being a member on FC - so anyone who is can correct me if I'm wrong - they look to have several different levels of access, unlike this forum which was - until recently - open-access ( and the only 'members only' access here is not aviation-related )
There's the basic 'open access' which anyone can see, then there would appear to be a 'members only' level and another 'members only who've made X ( is it 10? ) number of approved posts' which sounds to be the only ones who can access things like the deployment topics.
The old VTTS forum had similar levels of restrictions ( I think the top access level there was for those who had donated money ), and as with that, it's FC's forum and FCs rules.

Anyone who's read my posts on here will know that my big bugbear it that people post information on FC in the 'members only' area then come on here and tell people "The info is on FC" instead of simply just posting it on this forum too - it's not as if it's difficult ( merely copy-and-paste ) and I frequently used to post the same info on at least 3 different forums/newsgroups in the past.

I mean, can anyone who's also a member of FC say that posters on there routinely - or even occasionally - make posts on there telling other members "The info's on UKAR" ?
( No, 'Roger_Over', that's not aimed at you, it's something that others regularly do )

Anyway.....climbing down off my hobby-horse to say that no B-52s up today yet, that I know of.
Oh, and I note that the FM site has now corrected the T/Nos of Wednesday/Thursday's flights