Drone Wars, together with Oxfordshire Peace Campaign and CND, will host an online public meeting and in-person demonstration in January 2025 to oppose flights of US Global Hawk and Reaper drones from RAF Fairford military base in Glos.

The US Air Force (USAF) has applied to the UK’s air regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), to change airspace rules to allow RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-9 Reaper drones to fly regularly from RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire.

In August 2024, a US Global Hawk drone flew into Fairford, conducted two sorties over the following days and then departed. It appears these were two ‘demonstration’ flights to trial temporary air corridors. Following a Post-Implementation Review, in which it was revealed that ten flights into Birmingham airport had to be diverted because of the drones flight, the CAA has ordered the USAF/MoD to investigate “mitigation strategies” to resolve the impact on Birmingham Airport.

According to one document submitted to the CAA, the “working assumption” by the USAF is that the corridors would be activated 2-3 times per week but they are “exploring activation periods that exceed these assumption, both in frequency and time periods of utilisation.” The proposal is that the drones would take off and land overnight: “all activations will be between 1 hour after sunset and 1 hour before sunrise unless in extremis.”  While the application to fly Global Hawks from Fairford is on-going, the application to fly Reapers has been ‘paused’, likely till after Global Hawk flights have been approved,

Online public Meeting: Wednesday 15th January, 7.00pm – 8.30pm

Join us online to learn more about these dangerous development
and its worrying consequences both locally and globally.

Please register here:  Eventbrite registration

Demonstration at RAF Fairford: Saturday 25th January, 1pm, Main Gate

Demonstration will be by the main gate at corner of Horcott Road /Maine Street.
Postcode for Sat Nav: GL7 4DL

There will be parking for some cars.

Bring banners and placards, food for lunch, and dress appropriately for the weather.

If weather is poor we will confirm here if demonstration is going ahead or not, so please check back here near the date.

There are some spaces available on mini-bus from Oxford £10/£5 low-waged.

Pick up point will be the Ashmolean Museum with minibus departing at 11.15 am.
To book a place email: [email protected]  on first come/first served basis.

If you can make a donation to cover cost of transport we would be grateful.

Map of RAF Fairford

The drones will use RAF Fairford as a base for secretive US surveillance missions, only intensifying the UK’s complicity in far-reaching US military intelligence regimes.  Once these flights begin, there will be very little chance of the public knowing when or where these US drones will be used operationally. While the government has said previously that combat operations from US bases in the UK are subject to “joint decision” in reality the government has little say or control over operations from US bases as the framework under which they operate – the 1951 Status of Forces Agreement – gives jurisdiction to the US, not the UK.