SWINDON is bracing itself for an invasion of aircraft enthusiasts and aircrew as the Royal International Air Tattoo kicks off at Fairford.

The first of around 500 aircraft expected to take part in this year's show will begin arriving tomorrow and forecasters are predicting bright sunny weather for the main show days on Saturday and Sunday.

By the end of the show, air traffic controllers are predicting there will have been just over 1,200 take-offs and landings.

This year, the air tattoo is celebrating the centenary of flight. Nearly 100 years have passed since the Wright brothers flew their Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina.

Hotels across the Swindon area will be reaping the benefits of the tattoo, with many full during tattoo week.

Stephen Rees, general manager of the Express by Holiday Inn on Frankland Road, said: "We are going to be completely full during the weekend of show, there will be no vacancies whatsoever. We have been open two years and it's like this every year at this time."

Norma Brooks, landlady at the White Hart Hotel on the High Street in Cricklade, said they had been fully booked for the week since last year.

She said: "It is like this every year people book for the next year when they leave this year. We are very close to the base, so we have many of the exhibitors staying, and a small number of spectators."

More than 5,500 volunteers are currently preparing the site in readiness for the 100,000 visitors that are expected to enjoy the eight-hour flying display each day. The volunteers, some of whom have travelled from Australia, the US and Oman, will be accommodated in tents, old buildings, aircraft hangars, shacks, portable buildings and officers' messes within a 30-mile radius of the Gloucestershire base.

They will consume more than 27,000 packed meals, 12,000 hamburgers, 100,000 sausages and 20,000 litres of water before the event ends.

They are also being issued with more than 1,000 bottles of sun tan lotion in response to weather forecasts that are predicting a mini-heat wave over the airshow weekend.

Highlights for enthusiasts include the debut display of the RAF's first Eurofighter Typhoon in full squadron markings, while a second aircraft will be put through its paces in the sky by Italian test pilot Maurizio Cheli, who has also spent 320 hours in space.

Other aircraft appearing include the American B-2A Spirit Stealth Bomber, an example of the enigmatic U-2 Dragon Lady spyplane, while the French Navy is bringing along two of its latest Rafale carrier-based fighters.

There will be no fewer than seven of the world's greatest aerobatic display teams including the legendary Red Arrows, as well as the world's only ten-aircraft team, the Italian Il Frecce Tricolori and the French La Patrouille France. There will also be the Polish Team Iskry and the Royal Jordanian Falcons.

Tickets are £27.95 in advance and £33 on the day, available from Waitrose, the Stroud and Swindon Building Society, Tourist Information Centres in Swindon and at the Evening Advertiser on Victoria Road.