Following their successful “Reach for the Islands” fundraising flight in 2009, which raised £22,000 for Flying Scholarships for the Disabled (FSD), four pilots- Edwin Brenninkmeyer, Robert Lough, Timothy Nathan, and Dierk Reuter are planning two further linked flights in 2010.

“Reach for the Heroes” plans to raise much needed funds for FSD by linking the charity’s aims of transforming the lives of disabled civilians and service personnel wounded in recent armed conflict with the heroic achievements of “the Few” in this year, the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain .

The first flight on 20 August will be in partnership with the BBMF(Battle of Britain Memorial Flight). One of our aircraft, sporting the FSD logo, will fly in formation with a Spitfire and two Hurricanes. They will overfly 11 Battle of Britain fighter airfields in the south of England, landing at Duxford, Biggin Hill and finishing at Northolt.  The BBMF will overfly the Cabinet Office War Rooms. We aim to carry two veterans in the FSD aircraft.

For the second flight on 15 September our  four aircraft (two Aztecs and two Cessna 210s) flying in formation will visit 14 Battle of Britain  airfields in southern England, starting and ending at Biggin Hill.(see map) We hope to have Spitfires “on guard” at a number of airfields and are discussing the feasibility of a Spitfire joining the formation for part of the route. We plan to take with us on the flight two veterans and two former FSD scholars, underlining the importance of the linkage between these “heroes”.