Well, I don't know about that. But they were great shows! I think they started before that - I remember attending a 'Barnstormers' show at Barton in the late '60s or very early 70s.
The Friday 'practice days' were better than the show day, however.
But - a few memories (I did my PPL there in 1978 and flew based aircraft from there until we moved our Chippy to Liverpool a few years back).
Concorde!
A BAC Super 1-11 full of spotters from Manchester doing low fly-bys with one main wheel still retracted.
A touch and go by a DC3
A Don Bullock 'Sally B' display where from 10 back in the crowd, only the top of the tailfin could be seen as he flew down the runway!
Tragic crash of a Midget Mustang off a barrel roll, right into the ground.
The Harrier blasting all the carrots out of the farmer's field as he hovered just outside the airfield northern boundary in a noisy cloud of earth!
Some wonderful fast jet and big-piston displays. The Bearcat was one that has stayed in my mind. As he dived, in an ever-increasing scream, onto the field he pulled out at about 20 feet adjacent to a car dealer's tent, which all but collapsed in the wake. I can still see those shiney-suited salesmen fleeing that tent as they thought armageddon had arrived (it very nearly had!). In a pullup in that sprited display, I saw a large bird, several feet away from the Bearcat, felled like an ox by the pressure wave and falling out of the sky like a limp rag doll. You don't see balls-out stuff like that these days!
The mighty Vulcan, pounding the Barton turf and the chests of the onlookers in a full-power low-level wing-over. Several times!
One of my flying instructors and another Barton member killed in an aerobatic accident immediately after one show. After that, there was a 'no flying' rule after the show had finished.
Brian Lecomber arriving in the overhead in the bright red Stampe on the Saturday before the show. As he commenced an impromtu display, all the various pre-show activities on the field stopped - even the 'Kerdunker' that was hammering-in fence posts - as everyone was completely spellbound. When he finished, there was immediate, spontanious, and very loud applause (which Brian in the Blattering Stampe could not of course hear) from everyone on the field.
The year I watched the show from the northern boundary - patrolling police horses unfazed by the shattering sudden roar of low-level Starfighters, and the very ground shaking (it is a peat bog) when a helo dropped a car from a few hundred feet into the field behind me (don't ask)!
And lots more!
They were great days, the like of which in these PC times we are unlikely to see again.
SSD