I don't agree that airshows aren't as good as they used be. Having a supersonic Lightning fly past was certainly a blast but they didn't really do much else as you couldn't see them half the time. Last year at Berlin we were treated to the Typhoon doing the most amazing things - and almost staying within the airfiled boundary as well! Fantastic and to think the pilot actually gets paid for doing it!
Other aircraft included a Fokker tri-wing and other WW1 vintage machines, a pair of Mustangs letting Berlin hear the roar of the Merlin once again, a Catalina, Lufthansa's wonderful Junkers Ju52 - they were doing joy-rides too. Oh I could go on, but I don't remember a boyhood airshow that could touch it.
Apart from the time I got to sit in a Meteor cockpit at Thornaby in 1956 that is...