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Colorado Volunteer Pilots To Raise Money During Thursday Flyover Honoring Front-Line Workers

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) - A group of volunteer pilots will put on a show Thursday around lunchtime across the Denver metro area. It's another aerial show for front-line workers and to boost the spirits of Coloradans on the ground. But the flyover is working out to be just as cathartic for the pilots.

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"I hadn't flow for two months. Just, not at all," said Dagmar Kress, a pilot and coach of the Metro State University of Denver Aerobatics Team. "I didn't feel it was in place to fly and have fun while other people cannot pay their rent and have no food. But when Scott McMillian explained to me it was a fundraiser, I was in."

McMillian was so moved by the Thunderbirds flyover last month, he decided to organize a similar event. He called around to folks he's known and put on air shows with. He quickly had 40 pilots and unique aircraft signed up.

Civilian and warplanes will circle the Denver metro area from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Thursday.

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"We're anticipating over a $1,000,000 event tomorrow for the citizens of Colorado. And this money stays in Colorado, it does not leave the borders of the Colorado state and it goes in 25,000 grants to communities around Colorado who need help," McMillian said.

Lockheed Martin has already offered up $500,000. The organizers of Thursday's event are hoping spectators will pitch in the rest.

RELATED: Colorado Air National Guard Will Host A Flyover Over The Western Slope And Southern Colorado

"If everyone who sees it donates $1, that would be awesome because a lot of people live here in Denver," said Kress. "People love to look at airplanes."

Kress was infatuated with flying when she was a young girl in Germany, but wasn't given an opportunity to learn how to fly until she came to the United States for graduate school. She traded in Business Administration for a flight school.

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"Someone said, you can do this, you can learn this. Here is a flight school and the next day I had my first flight lesson," she said on the tarmac of Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport Wednesday as crews prepped for the flight. "If I look around at all these airplanes, that's quite something. I'm very honored to be included in this."

LINK: Help Colorado Now

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