Aircraft Fly Past… Can anyone help?

Hi All,

Not sure if anyone involved with any privately owned or indeed service aircraft can possibly help?

Its been a decade since we started the campaign to provide the local area (Wickford, Essex) with war memorials in keeping with the sacrifices they represent and a further three years since we opened the towns main memorial. We are now delighted to be in the final stages of works prior to opening the restored WW2 Avenue of Remembrance and the new Home Front Garden in our war memorial Park.

In the Avenue we have taken the original two lines of trees planted in 1949, cleared all the ad hoc growth around them, pruned and shaped all the original trees, replaced all missing trees, added trees for soldiers/airman who were missed from the original planting and at the same time replaced and repainted all the street furniture and improved lighting and other features. Without the doubt the crowning and very unique feature is the removal of the old lopsided plaques, which just had a surname on and their replacement with new plaques in front of each tree telling the story of the soldier or airman and where he was lost and in the case of around 60% of the plaques an inclusion of a photo of the man himself all now in an orderly alphabetical order.

The largest amount served and were killed with the RAF and cover all the commands and many different types of aircraft.

We applied to the BBMF last year but sadly were not successful as there was nothing ‘in or near Essex’ in May which was always likely to be our date of opening but was in the hands of the weather gods until recently. A forum member on here kindly got his squadron involved who looked like they could help but have had to pull out due to operational demands.

So after 10 years of hard work, funds raised in excess of £150,000 and with many of the relatives in attendance our long hoped for Flypast appears to be stood down. Hence my reason for asking if that anyone here can help or could forward on to anyone who could help, be it diverting a planned flight or indeed anything by anyone, we would be so grateful.

The date now set for our opening ceremony is Friday, May 23, 1100-1200.

Thanks for taking the time to read and any help.

Cheers
Steve