Having been to a couple of previous Tattoos as a regular visitor, I had the pleasure of visiting the '83 event by air on the Friday. I was doing a week's work experience at NEA at Manchester, and spent most of the week helping out a guy who had recently joined as pilot/marketing bod. He was assigned to take the boss and his wife down to Greenham for the day, and kindly asked them if they minded me tagging along, which they didn't. I assume that Friday was validation day, as most things seemed to display while we were there, which I watched from a marquee on the active side of the runway. Arrival there was an experience - bumbling along on finals in an Aztec with a C130 bearing down on us, and something small and fast behind that.
My brother wasn't best pleased - he had gone down on the train at stupid o'clock in the morning to get there, while I hadn't intended going at all - I only found out I was when I got to work at 9 that morning. I still got there before he did, though being before mobile phones I wasn't able to tell him until he got home late that night!