how about something a bit more inventive?
instead of one, or two, or three big airfield based events that the public go to, who not much larger numbers of smaller events where the the RAF - and AAC/RN - go to the public?
do a fast jet display along the north Cornwall coast on the last weekend of July and you'll be seen by tens of thousands, same with Pembrokeshire, Studland, Brighton, Blackpool etc... no logistics, no moving crews and support, no massive car parking and public transport efforts, and no associating the RAF with something of a rip-off...
a couple of GR4's doing a mock attack with lots of noise and flares over the bay at the weston air display would have been
spectacular, you could do wokka's dropping RIB's, C-130's doing beach landings and para drops (and lots of flares..
), Apache or Lynx doing stomach churning aerobatic displays, C-17, Sentry, Sentinal, RJ or Voyager with Typhoons doing a show of force - pick the date and locations and the RAF could be seen flying by
hundreds of thousands of people for the cost of two hours flying and a working saturday.
people want to have the hairs on the back of their necks raised, they want to go 'ooooh', 'aaaaah', and 'fcuk me backwards that was noisy/impressive' - paying £100 for a family of four to spend 4 hours in a traffic jam and then walk around some parked aircraft is not how the public want to see their
Air Force.