How to request your very own Red Arrows flypast

Organizing something interesting and fancy a flypast by the Red Arrows? Or a WW2-era bomber? Or how about a marching band to serenade your event?

Surprisingly not only is it possible, but it’s also usually free.

Well, it’s possible to ask. Whether they say yes is another matter.

Flying over The Mall, June 2023

Both the Red Arrows and the Battle of Britain Memorial flight can offer a flypast for you, and the Royal Corps of Army Music can provide a military band.

The only birthday or wedding any of them will turn up for is The King’s so unless His Majesty is reading this article, don’t bother applying for those. Almost any event that’s open to the general public is worth trying for though.

The most likely flypast you can request is by a fighter plane operated by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (BBMF), but they also have larger aircraft such as the Lancaster Bomber for special occasions.

Rather less likely, but worth trying – because you never know – is a flypast by the Red Arrows.

Generally, unless you are a military venue or a major event, your chances of a flypast are likely to be based on whether there is a plane in the air nearby visiting such a venue – therefore the more flexible you are in requesting a date, the greater the chance of the plane making a slight detour to visit you.

For example, the BBMF flies over London a couple of times a month during the summer so if you could say “any Saturday afternoon in June” and if are able to plan your event around their availability, your chances are much higher than if you requested a specific date.

Likewise for the Red Arrows, although as they rarely visit London you will have a better chance if you try to synchronize your request with something else happening in the South-East that the Red Arrows are likely to be visiting. Such as the Airshows at Southend, Farnborough, etc, or maybe following the King’s Birthday flypast if you are in West London.

For 2024, the RAF has confirmed that flypasts by the Red Arrows will only be possible in June and July as they are overseas for the rest of the year.

If you fancy some music, then the example form provided by the Royal Corps of Army Music is suggestive that some military connection would be helpful. So if you’re fundraising for a military charity or have some connection with a local military facility, that’ll likely help. Then again, if you’re running a summer fete for the church steeple restoration fund, try it, you never know, they might turn up.

It is just the effort of filling in a simple request form and if they say yes, won’t that look good on your event poster?

Red Arrows

Scroll to the bottom of this page and complete the application form.

Requests for 2024 need to be sent in by the end of this November.

BBMF

Scroll to the bottom of this page and complete the application form.

Requests for 2024 need to be sent in by the end of this November.

Royal Corps of Army Music

Scroll to the bottom of this page and download the form — note, the file may not download in a format you can open, so just add “.xls” to the end of the file name on your computer and it should then open in Excel for you.

There’s no explicit deadline for requests, so seems to be open to requests all year round. Obviously, the more notice given the better your chances.