Free Republic

American B-52 bombers have begun arriving in Britain, as Iraq claims six civilians were killed and 15 others injured in the latest round of US and British air raids inside the no-fly zone. The last time the bombers were stationed on British soil was for the attacks on Yugoslavia four years ago. Once again the long-range B-52s are based at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. The first of the huge jets landed just before noon on Monday. About an hour earlier, what appeared to be a U-2 spy plane had taken off. Two transporters aircraft are also at the base. British...

Beale Air Force Base, Calif. – On the evening of July 31st, a TU-2S Dragon Lady from the 9th Reconnaissance Wing took off from Beale Air Force Base (AFB) to begin a flight unlike any the U-2 airframe had done before. Seventy years after the very first Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady’s accidental maiden flight in 1955 by Tony LeVier over Groom Lake, Nevada, the U-2 would finish the longest single flight this platform had ever attempted, flying across all 48 contiguous states of the United States. An icon of the Cold War, the U-2 continues to provide high altitude intelligence,...