Interesting points PN and CBLT. I paid my £40 today to get myself and my 12 year old son onto the base I spent 6 of the best years of my service career on. As I don’t live near an RAF unit now it seemed a good way to see if he would catch some of the enthusiasm you talk about and which I got from visits to stations in my early teens after joining the Air Cadets. We tried to avoid the worst of the commercialisation of the show which as noted seems to have increased out of all recognition since I worked there last in 1998, but I would agree that although the flying display was alright the static line was pretty poor. I have to say I was impressed by the service personnel we did speak to who all took time to look interested and informative.
I suppose the question must be would such an event be viable if you strip out all the commercial stuff, and could a smaller show be hosted by any RAF unit given the current constraints on resources.
I guess that what we have is the best compromise between commercial reality and operational resources, although I’d be interested if there are any viable alternatives.