Besides a Martin-Baker Mk.11 ejector seat from a Handley-Page Victor bomber/tanker, a Miles Martinet target-tug canopy, and various aircraft instruments exhibited in showcases, other exhibits worth noting are two propellers belonging to an early era of aviation. One is four-bladed and could very well have come off a Felixtowe F.3 Flying Boat, eighteen examples of which were constructed at the Malta Naval Dockyard in 1918. The second propeller is two-bladed and is even older, a plate on its hub indicating that it was built at the Malta Naval Dockyard and that it fitted an 80 hp Bristol- built Le Rhone rotary engine. This type of engine had powered early versions of the Bristol Scout which saw operational service in the Mediterranean with both the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service during World War One.

The photo archives of the Museum is constantly growing, thanks to contributors, mainly from abroad, who loan their personal aircraft photos for the Museum to copy. A permanent photo exhibition could thus be set up, depicting 80 years of aviation in Malta.

A model diorama loaned for exhibition by its creator, Mr Louis Carabott of the Society for Scale Modellers, shows a Short Sunderland flying boat being serviced at Kalafrana. The diorama is significant also because it won the Best in Show trophy at the IPMS Nationals held in the United kingdom in 1995. This model is the beginning of a planned high standard permanent model exhibition showing tableaux of aviation history in Malta.

SEA WRECKAGE

The sea around Malta is strewn with aircraft wreckage but technical and financial constraints have always precluded even a serious study of the seabed. The Italian authorities came to our rescue in the summer of 1996 when the Italian Navy, using sophisticated hydro graphical vessels with state of-the-art sonar, scanned the seabed in a specified two-mile area around the Island. In a second sortie, by means of a video camera mounted on a midget unmanned submarine, a few of the aircraft were filmed at depths of more than 100 meters, these include a Sea Fury FB.11 and a Skyraider. Understandably, in order not to encourage souvenir hunters, no information about finds and exact spots has been released, but the potential is enormous, and the Italian Navy is eager to return in the near future to carry on the survey.