AM I the only one who wants to run down Richmond Hill with my arms outstretched like a pair of Hawk's wings, while muttering RAF slang like an excited erk, whenever a plane roars overhead?

Thought so. Just me then.

But there is a jolly feel-good factor about Bournemouth Air Festival that has put grins wider than a pilot's smile after a night out with a Waaf on the faces of the crowds teeming down to the seafront.

Doubtless there will be future flaps about carbon footprints (or feetprint) and the traffic issues but right now we should be pinching ourselves at our luck.

Not only is Bournemouth staging a bang-on spectacle but it hasn't cost a penny to stand and see it. And how often can you say that these days?

I don't want to get involved in a dogfight with another south coast resort but earlier this month Eastbourne staged its four-day Airbourne festival, which it bills as the "biggest seafront airshow in the world". And, for the first time, this year they charged a fiver entry fee just to watch it.

How many people shelled out the cash to stand in their fenced-off enclosure? Just 48,000 leaving the council there suffer- ing a mighty prang with a hole in its bean-budget of £200,000, if the gen's pukka.

By contrast, hundreds of thousands of people have flocked to Bournemouth for a shufti at the super free four-day wizard festival. And private sponsorship has shelled out towards the festival's cost.

So let's doff our Biggles' helmets to the brasshats and boffins who have organised this fine wheeze in Bournemouth. And then jink on down to the seafront for a sortie.

That's it, you chaps and ladies. It's roger and out.