Let’s not forget that display restrictions have also pushed aircraft farther and farther away. An airshow highlight for me was the RCAF ‘Red Indians’ F-104 show starter where the narrator would ask the crowd to look to their front while a gaggle of very low-level Starfighters would zoom at high speed from crowd rear. I saw many an ice cream dropped. I doubt we’ll ever see the like of that. Or gaggles of 104s of course. Plus there were LOADS of airshows, big and small.
For me the variety is still there, but the balance has changed: we had fewer warbirds in the 70s when I started going, and yes we’ve lost the Lightnings, Vulcans, SR-71s etc; but we still have some oldie show-stoppers like the U-2 (sadly not often enough) and B-52 (sadly static usually) and some of the newbies are pretty cool too – V-22, F-22 and F-35 for a start. Plus we never saw anything Eastern Bloc at European shows back then either. Maybe we’ll also get another Bear at RIAT before they go out of service or something from China? Bear in mind that most of the aforementioned easily qualify as warbirds too!
So better back then? Yes – undoubtedly in terms of actual flying displays and contemporary hardware. But a lot of modern shows have evolved into something different and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
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