A United States Air Force B-1 bomber is currently in the skies above the UK.

The Open Source Intelligence Twitter account Intel Air & Sea followed the event earlier, if you don’t follow them then I’d suggest you go do that now by clicking here.

Why is it here? Well, it’s expected to take part in a fly-past to celebrate the 80th anniversary celebrations for the U.S. 8th Air Force.

We have asked the U.S. Air Force for comment.

According to the Boeing website here, nicknamed ‘The Bone,’ the B-1B Lancer is a long-range, multi-mission, supersonic conventional bomber, which has served the United States Air Force since 1985.

“The aircraft is on track to continue flying, at current demanding operations tempo, out to 2040 and beyond, and Boeing partners with the Air Force to keep the B-1 mission ready. Originally designed for nuclear capabilities, the B-1 switched to an exclusively conventional combat role in the mid-1990s. In 1999, during Operation Allied Force, six B-1s flew 2 percent of the strike missions, yet dropped 20 percent of the ordnance, and during Operation Enduring Freedom the B-1 flew on 2 percent of the sorties while dropping over 40 percent of the precision weapons.”

The B-1 has been nearly continuously deployed in combat operations over Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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16 COMMENTS

    • How much emissions does that actually cause?

      Last week the press were all having kittens about artificial snow destroying the planet at the WInter Olympics.

      When you work it out, the total amount of water used – 49 million gallons, turns out to be about half of the volume of water in the small pond known as The Serpentine.

      • Issue is the water is coming from a protected water reserve and its ten times what they said they would use in their Olympic bid document sustainability submission if it was required to use purely artificial snow (3m gallons taken 50% from the river and 50% from the nature reserve).
        The Serpentine covers 40 acres to a depth of 15m. So how many acres of wildlife reserve do you need to drain at an average depth of 2m to achieve that volume of water?

    • SS wrote:

      Burning all that gas for a trans Atlantic flypast doesnt seem verygreen` 😜

      The USAF thought about their public image and had the jet shut down 3 of its engines and it flew across on just the one ,the fuel they used was used chip fat oil. which was soursed from a huge fat berg found blocking the drains in Atlanta

    • The perfect excuse to send over additional aircraft and conduct some joint training while they’re here to make it worthwhile!

      • Maybe some B52 And B2 make it a worthy fly past…to honour the fallen. They could do a nice little loop Flyover of eastern Europe as they do.

        • I think their presence would be felt without the need to burn up more chip fat oil frying over Eastern Europe. 😂

  3. From the Madingley cemetery Facebook page…

    To mark the 80th Anniversary of the forming of the mighty 8th AF and their ties to England. Cambridge American Cemetery will be part of a special flyby on Tuesday 1 February. Aircraft will be flying from RAF Marham to RAF Lakenheath, to IWM Duxford, to Wimpole Hall, to Cambridge American Cemetery and then to RAF Mildenhall. Aircraft will be 6 in total. They will be:
    2 x B1B Lancer (USAF 34 Bomber Sqdn)
    2 x F-15 Strike Eagles (USAF 494th FS, 48th Fighter Wing)
    2 x F-35B (RAF/RN, 207 Sqdn)
    Flight time 12.03 pm over the cemetery, but if you are in the flight path and the weather is OK, you may see them.

  4. I managed to get up to duxford to see the flypast. I’d heard it was meant to be two B1’s, 3 RAF F35s and a host of F15s out of Lakenheath, however it was 1, 1 and Two instead with a Hawk T2 acting as a camera ship. Still an impressive sight to see!

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