Then and Now: Aircraft over Spokane

Mon., Jan. 19, 2026

Present day: A U.S. Air Force KC-135 air refueling tanker, a common sight over the city, flies over the ornate tower of the Spokane County Courthouse in March on its approach route to Fairchild Air Force Base west of Spokane. Crews of Fairchild’s tanker fleet, the largest in the Air Force, often practice approaches and landings at the base. (JESSE TINSLEY/The Spokesman-Review)

By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com (509) 459-5378

Fairchild Air Force Base has announced that its 2026 SkyFest air show will be June 6 to 7, showcasing current and historical aircraft. But since the first biplanes in the 1920s, Spokane skies have been a veritable airshow of military planes for almost a century.

Fairchild started when Spokane businesses and citizens raised $125,000 to buy land for an Army air maintenance station on the city’s West Plains in 1941. The War Department responded with another $14 million to complete the Spokane Army Air Depot, which opened in March 1942.

Throughout World War II, the airfield was a repair station for planes coming from the Pacific theater, with workers, many of them women, repairing airframes and overhauling engines on thousands of B-17s. The site also served as a warehouse for supplies.

The Army Air Corps officially became the United States Air Force in 1947 and the air depot was renamed Spokane Air Force Base. Now under the Strategic Air Command and part of the 15th Air Force, squadrons of the latest bomber, the B-29 Superfortress, filled the flight line. In 1950, the base was named after Gen. Muir S. Fairchild, a Bellingham native who flew airplanes in World War I and had recently died.

At the close of World War II, the military was already developing a bigger bomber that could carry the heaviest nuclear weapons and fly 10,000 miles without refueling.

The Convair B-36 Peacemaker was unveiled in 1949 and the first ones arrived in Spokane in 1951. With a massive 230-foot wingspan, the crew of 16 watched over six piston engines and four jet engines, leading to the slogan “six turning and four burning.”

Though designed for the Cold War’s worst scenarios, the B-36 never dropped a bomb in combat.

The giant bombers stood guard at Fairchild until they were replaced by the B-52 Stratofortress in 1957. Except for a few on museum display, all the B-36 craft were dismantled by 1959.

The Air Force changed the focus at Fairchild in 1993, making it home to 92nd Air Refueling Wing, which has built up the largest fleet of KC-135 Stratotankers in service. The Air National Guard’s 141st Air Refueling Wing works alongside USAF personnel at Fairchild.