ORGANISERS of next month’s Royal International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford are expecting record crowds, with Saturday already sold out.

Last year 160,000 people went through the gates, but this year the capacity on the Friday has been increased to meet demand as the nation gears up to celebrate the RAF centenary.

Among the highlights at the three-day airshow, which opens on July 13-15, will be a massed RAF100 flypast, a royal review and a parade by the Queen’s Colour Squadron on the Friday plus a series of unique aerial set pieces over the weekend.

More than 25 nations, including Ukraine, Canada, Australia, Romania, Greece, Oman and the US, are sending military aircraft to take part.

Head of marketing Helen Webb said “Whilst every air tattoo is special, it’s not every day that we get the chance to stage such an important national salute. As a result, we’ve made the Friday a full public day, for this year only, and extended our free child ticket policy to include all accompanied under-18s.

“It’s a testament to the Air Tattoo’s reputation that we’ve already sold out on the Saturday, and only have a limited number of tickets remaining for the Friday and Sunday despite the fact we’ve still to formally announce details about the flypast as well as our other exciting plans for the show”