A former Neale Wade student - who was the first trainee pilot to land at RAF Wittering’s re-opened airfield in 2014 - played an important role in celebrating 100 years of the Royal Air Force at Westminster Abbey.
Flying Officer Alex Ogden, from March, escorted the Royal Air Force Ensign down the aisle as part of the emotive service on Tuesday (July 10).
The Centenary of the RAF was aired on BBC One.
It saw The Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, mark 100 years of aviation and endeavour.
Flying Officer Ogden escorted the symbolic flag down the aisle alongside Squadron Leader Lee Turner to the sound of the Band of the Royal Air Force College.
Events continued on The Mall and at Buckingham Palace, where more than a thousand servicemen and women from across the RAF took part in a parade.
A spectacular flypast ended the celebrations.
Flying Officer Ogden was an undergraduate at the University of East Anglia and member of Cambridge University Air Squadron when he was co-pilot of the first aircraft to touch down at the reactivated airfield in Wittering.
He went on to graduate from UEA with a first class honours degree in mathematics and joined the RAF as an officer cadet.
Having completed his officer training at RAF College Cranwell he returned to RAF Wittering as a member of 16 (Reserve) Squadron.
Speaking to the paper last year, Flying Officer Ogden said: “I’ve always loved military aircraft, it’s why I became an air cadet and that’s how I learned about the air force.”
He is now based at RAF Linton-on-Ouse in North Yorkshire.
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