The Red Arrows are set to perform over the weekend at the Midlands Air Festival, bringing one of Britain’s best-known display teams back to Ragley Hall in Alcester, Warwickshire, as the three-day event runs from Friday to Sunday.

Gates open at 11:30 on Friday, with the first major crowd moment arriving at 19:00 when a hot-air balloon mass ascent is planned. That will be followed by a balloon night glow at 21:50, then another balloon ascent at 06:00 on Saturday. For people searching for the red arrows flight path today, the headline attraction is part of a packed schedule that also includes more than 100 giant, multicoloured hot-air balloons, a cold war MiG 17F fighter jet from Poland and a French fire bomber expected to drop more than 3,000 litres of water — about 660 gallons — in four seconds.

Saturday’s air display is split into two parts, starting at 12:15 and 16:05, before Sunday brings more air displays and hot-air balloon tetherings. The festival ends at 21:00 on Sunday, wrapping up a weekend that organisers are using not just to draw a crowd, but to put aviation in front of young people and to highlight women in the field.

The event comes back to Ragley Hall with momentum. Last year, thousands of people flocked to the same site for the three-day Midlands Air Festival, which also featured the Red Arrows. That return matters because it gives the organisers a built-in audience and a familiar stage for a programme that mixes spectacle with a message about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

The tension this year is that the festival is trying to do two things at once: deliver the kind of sky show that pulls in thousands, while also selling a longer-term pitch about who aviation is for. The aircraft and balloon schedule is the easy part. The harder test is whether the event’s STEM theme and focus on women in aviation land with the same force as the flypasts and night glow.

For now, the answer is already visible in the timetable. The Red Arrows are back, the balloons are bigger than the crowd, and Ragley Hall is set for a weekend built around noise, colour and repeat visits to the sky.