KM-B 44 Sqdn colours, Yeovilton 1979 (that one’s from my Dads slide collection, 10 year olds weren’t let loose with expensive stuff like colour film back then! 😀 )

No sign of any shots in 617 sqdn markings, but I’ll keep digging.

looks pretty quite here tonight, guess everyone’s still at Duxford!

A couple of recent ones to start things off

WS-J 9 Sqdn colours, photographed at the BBMF members day in 1998 (my first digital camera, so excuse the quality!)

QR-M 61 Sqdn colours, above Old Walden August 2003 (haven’t digital cameras improved in 5 years? 😀 )

will have to dig the scanner out for any earlier ones.

Thanks for the link Flood, very interesting stuff, wonder what happened to N5520’s Blenheim engine and prop.

Mark- never thought really, suppose it all does look like that! 🙂

No, When handed over it was much more complete. In the photo it has an engine, propellor, cowl ring and undamaged tail. Looks kike the vandals got to it afterwards then?

I’m guessing the wartime shot in the quarry was before the presentation in Sept 1943?

The booklet dates from 1944, so it cannot be more than a few months after it was presented, most likely quite a bit earlier. Surely such a significant airframe would not have been stripped and abandoned so soon after all the fuss of ‘presenting it to the people of Malta’.

What sort of prop is present in your photograph Dave, 2 or 3 bladed? Wonder if the current prop dates from the original ‘patch up’ in 1943 or from later restoration work, they would all have been metal three bladed units when in service I would have thought?

These are a couple of scans taken from “the Air Battle of Malta” HMSO 1944. Does the aircraft in the presentation photo look something like the second one Dave?

According to the pamphlet Faith was the sole survivor (by Sept 1943) of the 4 Sea Gladiators that had been put together to form an improvised local defence unit in April 1940. Indeed it states only one Gladiator was operational by the time the first four hurricanes were acquired at the end of June 1940.

The booklet makes fascinating reading, I’m guessing a few things will have been revised by more objective study in the passing decades but it provides a real “first draft of history” as it were.

Brilliant, what an experience, must be amazing to see those old flying boats in action.

Looking forward to the next instalment Papa Lima