steamy wrote:how come they are transitting Mildenhall and not Fairford?
I can't see how that works as a reason...
Being a 'permanent' USAF base, Mildenhall has plenty of support staff and equipment available to cope with the diversion. When B-1Bs etc. are deployed to Fairford, all the support is flown in from their home base before the bombers arrive; it's not normally there, so Fairford can't usually handle an unexpected visitor.
You may remember that there was a similar diversion of a B-1B to the UK earlier this year. As it happened, there was an active B-1B deployment at Fairford at the time, so support was available, and it did indeed divert there.
