Far fewer air shows in the SW these days

CERTAIN events act as bookmarks in Devon's year, and the English Riviera Airshow has quickly made itself one of them.

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It is just a few days now until the 2025 show begins, with familiar airborne visitors leaving their coloured smoke trails hanging over the bay and echoes of afterburners rattling around the hills.

There are fresh things on the programme this year, too, with an evening Spitfire flypast, fireworks and twilight aerobatics featuring aircraft sporting wing tip pyrotechnics. They appeared once before at the first bay air show in 2016 and this is a welcome return.

When the air show was first conceived it seemed like a radical idea and plenty of people wondered if Torbay could pull it off. Now it is hard to imagine an early summer on the English Riviera without it.

There are fewer air shows across the South West these days. Once upon a time there were loads.

Plymouth had one, with aircraft taking off from the city's now-abandoned airport before doing their thing over the adoring crowds on the Hoe.