HP Hastings remains on Malta?

The wings on the Elvington machine are Hastings outers that were found crated in a scrapyard on the south coast . The wings in the Queen Mary are off the Catterick Hastings .

In my time on 13 Sqdn there was a Meteor, minus it’s outer wings still standing on its undercarriage, behind the 13 Sqdn dispersal, it had RAF Malta Target Towing Flight written along the fuselage, what became of it i have no idea but it would have been worth saving for the Malta museum.

Brings back memories..my father was AEO of 728 Sqdn, the FAA target towing unit based at HalFar in 1966, leading up to it’s disbandment. I remember wandering over to the station dump and sitting in a Javelin fuselage…and watching Buccaneers practising toss bombing the little island off the cliffs was always entertaining.

Are you sure, I think they were Hastings wings found still in crates.

Although the centr section came from a Hastings the outer wings and the outer wing on the Queen Mary are original Halifax outer wings and were found in a scrap yard still in their crates.

Outboard wings I would guess as one of the Hastings wings is painted up in camo and on a Queen Mary at Elvington.

The wingspan of the Halifax and Hastings is different so the extra is either in the centre section or outboard wings.

I know the Centre section of the YAM Halifax is from a Hastings, are the centre sections from both so alike or did the YAM need to modify it much to make it a Halifax ?

May be worth contacting the Malta Aviation Museum – its a small island, so they will probably know most of the aircraft remains on it.

Here is a picture of some Mosquito remains on Malta:

There was a pic of a Canberra Wing including the empty engine nacelle in a scrap year near Hal Far in or around the March 1990 edition of Flypast I recall. It was forming part of the roof of some kind of hut.

Paul

The Canberra wing was from a complete airframe donated by the RAF to form part of the Malta Air Museum but never got that far. In the late 1960’s early 1970’s a scrap yard near Msida had substantial remains of Sea Hornets, Vampires, Meteors, Sea Venoms, and Valettas, the yard closed some time after that but by early 1980’s a yard in Paula had large Hastings sections and other large unidentifiable parts. In my time on 13 Sqdn there was a Meteor, minus it’s outer wings still standing on its undercarriage, behind the 13 Sqdn dispersal, it had RAF Malta Target Towing Flight written along the fuselage, what became of it i have no idea but it would have been worth saving for the Malta museum.

Karl is absolutely sure that it’s a Hastings centre section. He was instrumental in raising Halifax NA337, so I am not questioning him.

Cheers
Cees

There was a pic of a Canberra Wing including the empty engine nacelle in a scrap year near Hal Far in or around the March 1990 edition of Flypast I recall. It was forming part of the roof of some kind of hut.

Paul

I am sure there were some photos of Malta scrapyard contents in one of the magazines in the last few years, sorry cannot remember which one or when.

Thanks Richard,

According to Karl Kjasgaard some some years ago he mentioned that he had located a Hastings centre section in a Malta scrapyard. The remains of Mossie are still around there so this sounds real. Any known scrapyards in the vicinity?

Cees

Cees
Several Hastings ended their lives by being scrapped in Malta. The ones I know of are WJ324 a C4 VIP aircraft used by FEAF and MEAF and another was WJ328 a C2. The remains of these may have lingered for a while after they were broken up.

Richard