No one likes being woken up before they need to get out of bed, especially before the sun has started to rise. But this is exactly what happened to locals in one West Country town, who were disturbed at 4am.
Two B-1B Lancers based at RAF Fairford took off at the crack of dawn and headed over Lechlade and Faringdon on their way east, reports Gloucestershire Live. The USAF planes have been deployed to the Cotswolds base since last month and on recent missions have been flying over Eastern Europe.
There have been early-morning take-offs before, but this appears to be one of the earliest with one leaving around 4am and the other a short while later. The sunrise departures meant many people started their day a little earlier than planned. One person on a private Facebook group wrote: "Might as well have a cuppa, B1 alarm's gone off."
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Another said: "Yep, woke me up too. Thought it was a rocket for a moment and was waiting for a bang." A fellow contributor added: "I thought that one was coming through the window."
While another was philosophical: "Got to love a B1 alarm clock at 4am, sort of reminds you how insignificant you are in the big scheme of things." While the original poster wrote: "4am planes are bad planes."
Four US Air Force B-1B Lancers from the 7th Bomb Wing, Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, are currently at RAF Fairford. A recent mission saw them take part in hot-pit refueling at Mihail Kogălniceanu Air Base, Romania as part of German Air Defender 23 on June 12.
Hot-pit refueling allows aircraft to stay in the air longer, providing fuel to the fight and minimizing time on the ground. Capt. Joshua Dvorak, bomber task force liaison officer, said: “Hot-pits provide us the chance to exercise the agile combat employment concept."
The current Bomber Task Force has been operating out of RAF Fairford since late May, and have participated in exercises Vanguard Hawk, Fortress Salvatore, Viking Trident, and Arctic Challenge.
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